Lords Sitting of 29 March 1983

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chichester.

Proprietary Drugs and Generic Substitution
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will implement the recommendation contained in paragraph 24 of the Greenfield Report on Effective Prescribing, whereby doctors would be required to indicate a positive preference for the proprietary version of a drug and, in the absence of such indication, the pharmacist would be expected to dispense the "generic" version when this exists.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Security has asked for comments on the report from interested organisations by 15th April. We shall not be making any decision on this or the report's other recommendations until we have had time to consider the comments we receive.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, while I thank the noble Lord for that Answer and I am glad to hear that the Secretary of State is taking the report seriously, may I ask him whether he is aware of an experiment which has been operating at Abbots Langley for the last four years, in which the generic system was run on a voluntary basis and where it was calculated that the saving to the National Health Service was over £6,000 in one pharmacy alone, and that this, extrapolated nationwide, would produce a saving of some £40 million?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, it is very unwise to extrapolate the results of such very limited experiments as the one to which the noble Lord refers, because the results of wide-spread generic substitution, as it is called, would certainly result in an upward trend in the prices of drugs covered by patent for which no generic substitute exists. Therefore I hope the noble Lord will not take too much guidance from the kind of information that he has given to your Lordships. Having said that, we are, as the noble Lord recognises, considering this matter carefully and will announce our conclusions in due course.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, while it is true that considerable savings can be made on drugs in the National Health Service, would not the noble Lord agree that it is somewhat dangerous to leave the responsibility to pharmacists when doctors should
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have the responsibility of prescribing either the proprietary drug or its equivalent? That responsibility should not be left to pharmacists, because in some instances it would be a tremendous risk to take.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, that is a perfectly respectable point of view but it is not necesssarily one which is universally shared. It is worth saying that pharmacists are highly qualified in their own profession. If some way forward along these lines were to be decided upon, pharmacists would be well qualified to follow that course.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that pharmacists in hospital dispensaries are entitled to make the substitution from proprietary to generic drugs? Is my noble friend further aware that there was a television programme on the National Health Service, hosted by Brian Walden, which showed not just figures of savings from an extrapolation of £6,000 but figures of savings very similar to those given by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, which could be made to the National Health Service drugs bill?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I have seen some of the programmes to which my noble friend refers and I have to say that these calculations rely upon a number of assumptions which are not necessarily proven in practice. As for hospitals, the position is that by agreement between doctors and medical staff in hospitals, generic substitution is practised to a considerable extent. But the circumstances are rather different. For example, doctors in hospitals are aware of precisely which generic substitute is to be dispensed in any particular case.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, is a wary eye also kept on the prices charged by drugs manufacturers?
Lord Trefgarne: Yes, indeed, my Lords, We are at present reviewing the Pharmaceutical Prices Regulation Scheme.
Lord Wells-Pestell: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Minister if he is in a position to say whether the profit to the pharmacist is greater on proprietary brands than on generic drugs?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, this tends to vary from pharmacy to pharmacy. It depends upon the price at which the pharmacist purchases his supplies. Generally speaking, he is reimbursed at a standard rate and is free to buy his supplies, provided they are from a reputable source, at the best price he can get.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, does the noble Lord know of any case where the prioprietary version is superior to the generic version?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the whole purpose of this system is to establish a range of generic substitutes which are just as good as and, indeed, identical to the standard version. But the difficulty is that the standard versions are generally covered by patent. The generic substitutes cannot come into use until the patent expires.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, is the noble Lord fully aware of the commercial pressure on doctors which exists? May I ask him whether he has read the minutes of a meeting on 14th October, 1982 of the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry in which the industry itself showed considerable signs of acute embarrassment about its own promotional excesses?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am aware of some anxiety on the point which the noble Lord raises. This is a matter for the pharmaceutical companies themselves. It is also for the doctors to ensure that they are not misled by any excessive or misleading advertising.
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that on many occasions doctors welcome visits from pharmaceutical salesmen since they are the source of information about the latest developments?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am sure that is true, but I guess there is a difference between the sort of informative visits to which my noble friend refers and the excessive advertising and publicity junkets which have recently been the source of some publicity.

Argentina: Licensed Supplies of Armaments
2.43 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what quantity and types of armaments, licensed by them, left this country for the Argentine during March 1982.
The Secretary of State for Trade (Lord Cockfield): My Lords, shipments under specific licences of supplies for military use amounted to about £1.1 million. They included arms and ammunition, military radio equipment, computers and spares for various types of military equipment.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, does the noble Lord the Minister recall from the Franks Report that in the first few days of March, 1982, our representative in Buenos Aires warned the Foreign Office that there might be landings on the islands, that the Prime Minister asked for contingency plans, and that the Foreign Office warned the Governor of the Falklands that we were perilously near confrontation? Would he tell the House whether it is true that on 19th March, at Sheerness, an Argentinian ship loaded military supplies made by British Manufacture and Research Limited in Grantham; that on 25th March an Argentinian Air Force jet left Stansted Airport with military supplies; and that on 29th March an Argentinian airliner flew out of Heathrow loaded with military spares, all of these licensed by the Government?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, so far as the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary question is concerned,
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perhaps I might read to him the conclusion of the Franks Committee, which is as follows:
"We believe that our account demonstrates conclusively that the Government had no reason to believe before 31st March that an invasion of the Falkland Islands would take place at the beginning of April."
I think that disposes of the noble Lord's first point.
So far as his other points are concerned, the total shipments, as I have said, amounted to £1.1 million, which in this area is a relatively small sum of money. It is not the practice to give details of individual export licences.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there is continuing concern about the supply of arms to the Argentine? Is it the case that since last summer 17 Mirage fighter bombers have been supplied to the Argentine? Is he aware, also, that four warships with Rolls-Royce engines have been supplied to the Argentine, bought with money which the Argentine, of all countries, cannot afford? Could he say what representations Her Majesty's Government are making to our allies, the United States and others, such as France and Germany, who are supplying these armaments, especially in the light of the fact that the Argentine have not declared the cessation of the state of war with this country?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, we share the noble Lord's concern at the supply of arms to the Argentine by third countries. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has made these views known very forcibly on a number of occasions.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, would the Secretary of State accept that the implication of the finding of the Franks Committee that the Government had no reason to expect an Argentine invasion at the beginning of April is that they did have reason to expect an Argentine invasion at some time thereafter? Would the noble Lord also agree that even two months before an invasion is no time to be selling £1 million worth of goods to the enemy?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I think the noble Lord has not quite understood the chronoiogy. The Franks Report says there was no reason to suppose that an invasion would be made up to 31st March. The invasion took place on 2nd April, which is a matter of three days after that date.
Viscount Trenchard: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that in the world as it is, and not the world as we might like it to be, the Argentine will in the future, as it has in the past, buy modern arms from our industrial competitors, if not from ourselves? Would my noble friend also agree that no criticism should attach to the Labour Administration of 1970 for signing a large contract for destroyers and modern weapons for supply to the Argentine, because in fact we at least knew exactly what those arms would do when the regrettable conflict took place?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I appreciate the points made by my noble friend. I wish to make it clear that there is, and remains, a complete ban on the supply of armaments from this country.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the enormous debt of the Argentine has recently been restructured and that British interests have participated in that restructuring? Would it not be possible to ensure that the restructuring of international debts of such countries is made conditional on none of the additional credits being made available for armaments?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, the position here is that the loans were made by the IMF. We are members of the IMF, but of course we do not ourselves actually run the IMF. It is a joint international body in which a large number of countries are represented. It has always been the policy of the IMF not to attach political conditions to its loans. Nevertheless, the conditions attached on economic and budgetary grounds would make it less likely, and not more likely, that the Argentine would have money to spend on armaments.
Lord Derwent: My Lords, does not my noble friend agree that most of the supplementary questions, except that of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, have nothing to do with the Question on the Order Paper which refers to March and not to other months?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, while I entirely agree with my noble friend I have been endeavouring to answer the questions which have been put because the answer in most instances is perfectly straightforward.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, if the Minister takes the attitude, as he does, of a kind of indifference about supplying arms to Argentina even only a fortnight before hostilities started in April last year, is it unreasonable that noble Lords should express concern about events since? In the light of the cold and clinical disdain of the Prime Minister when the Franks Report was debated in another place, is it not inconsistent that her policy allows not only the sale of arms to Argentina but also the means to pay for them? Were there no safeguards in the IMF loan? After all, I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer was for a time chairman of the meetings which took place and we could have sought safeguards from our allies to ensure that British forces in the Argentine did not meet with weapons supplied by their own country.
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord's comments about my right honourable friend the Prime Minister are entirely unjustified and completely inaccurate. None of us has shown any indifference in this matter at all. I have made it perfectly clear that there is and remains a total embargo on the supply of armaments from this country to the Argentine. As regards the IMF, we must operate within the terms of the IMF rules and these I have explained in reply to an earlier supplementary question.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, are we to understand from the series of answers that my noble friend has given that while Britain has a clean bill of health, as it clearly has on this matter, we are somewhat disappointed that some of our allies, indeed our partners in Europe, do not seem to have quite the same attitude to this matter?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I entirely understand the point made by my noble friend. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has made his views on this matter very plain to the Governments concerned.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is it not nonetheless disquieting, irrespective of party, that this country provided much of the means whereby not only Argentine but British servicemen were killed and injured? Does the noble Lord not agree that it is high time that the international arms trade was brought under more effective control?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I would not accept the innuendo in the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary question. So far as the second part of his question is concerned, I appreciate that he believes there should not be any international trade in arms. That is a point of view held by a number of people. It is not held by the majority of people, and certainly not held on these Benches.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is it the view of the Government that the international trade in arms should not be carried on with countries which persistently and brutally reject human rights?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, we do apply restrictions on the supply of arms to countries by reference to breaches of human rights.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, with the greatest respect, the original Answer which the noble Lord gave me did not deal with the specific question which I put to him. May I ask him again: is it correct that the Franks Report, whatever its final conclusions might be, exposed the fact that at the beginning of March the Foreign Office here told the Governor of the Falklands,
"We are now perilously near confrontation"?
If that is correct, is it not the case that the arms that were sent from this country during the following few weeks were the arms that were used to kill British men in the Falkland Islands? May I ask whether the Minister has read the Written Answer of the Prime Minister in another place on 14th March which contradicts the last part of his Answer to me by giving specific details of flights from this country to the Argentine during the period that I have questioned?
Lord Cockfield: My Lords, I have, of course, a copy of my right honourable friend's reply in front of me. It starts by saying:
"There is no evidence in official records that the arms which the honourable Member describes were exported on the flights in question. If he has any relevant information, I will arrange for the matter to be further investigated".—[Official Report, Commons 14/3/83; col. 24.]
The Prime Minister then gave certain information about the export of arms on certain flights and those figures were specifically included in the figures that I quoted to the noble Lord in reply to his Question on the Order Paper. So far as the Franks Committee is concerned, the important thing is the verdict to which the Franks Committee came, and that verdict was as I have read out to the noble Lord.
Lord Hankey: My Lords, might there be time for a question from the Cross Benches?
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Young): My Lords, we have spent 19 minutes on the first two Questions and I should have thought it would be right and the wish of the House that we now move on to the next Question.

Broadcasting Complaints Commission
2.57 p.m.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what has been the cost of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission since its introduction in 1981.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Elton): My Lords, the available information about the commission's expenditure relates to the year ending 31st March, 1982 and is contained in its first annual report. In that year the commission's net expenditure was £97,956. Details for 1982–83 will be contained in its second annual report later this year.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he could tell the House how many complaints have been investigated during the first two years of the commission's existence? If the number of complaints is not great, would my noble friend consider whether it is because too few people who feel that they have been individually unfairly treated know of the existence of the commission and the manner in which they can report their anxieties to it? Would it not be in the general interest that rather more publicity be given to this estimable organisation?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am happy to assist my noble friend in giving publicity to the commission, the first annual report of which shows that, of the complaints it received during the period 1st June 1981 to 31st March 1982, 23 fell within its jurisdiction. Of those, six were still before the commission at the end of the period.
As to the second part of my noble friend's supplementary question, the commission's function is to consider and adjudicate upon complaints of unjust and unfair treatment in broadcast programmes and of unwarranted infringement of privacy in programmes or in their preparation. The Government do not consider that it would be appropriate to extend the commission's jurisdiction to the consideration of complaints about general programme standards. The broadcasting authorities are responsible for maintaining proper standards, and it would unacceptably weaken their authority if their decisions were to be subject to review.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that when the BBC rather carelessly
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published a photograph of me as Master of the Rolls and I telephoned to complain, I received no answer?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I imagine that if the mistake had been less flattering to the noble Lord he would have proceeded to submit his complaint in writing.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: My Lords, was there a complaint from the Master of the Rolls?
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, can my noble friend tell me whether it is within the terms of reference of the commission to deal with complaints as to the publication of views about proceedings in Parliament?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the complaints in question relate to individual cases, and if my noble friend has a complaint as to the frequency or manner in which publicity has or has not been given to his own pronouncements it would be proper for him to approach the commission. Otherwise, I cannot help him.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, my noble friend's answer suggests that the commission is not overworked if it looks at two complaints every month. I wonder, therefore, whether it would perhaps be wise to develop its terms of reference a little so that we could make sure that in the coming weeks it is not only the minority view of the CND which is put over on the BBC and through other media but that the majority view of this country—those who believe in general and multilateral nuclear disarmament—should also be given fair treatment?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the remit of the commission relates to individual complaints. I should have thought that, this year, we might have an increase of the volume of one-twelfth in response to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, and my noble friend Lord Ferrier. But if the remit is to be expanded to deal with questions of balance, then there is a difficulty in that it will overlap with that of the corporation and the authority. I will, however, take my noble friend's concern to my right honourable friend.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, is it not a fact that the commission was established as the result of representations made in this House of Parliament and in the other place? But is it not also a fact that the terms of reference are much more limited than was required or asked for in this House? In the light of experience, would it not be a good thing to look at them again?
Lord Elton: My Lords, the remit is set out in Part III and Schedule 7 to the Act of 1981. I cannot answer for the exchanges which took place in this House before they were enacted or, indeed, at the time of their enactment. I think I can add nothing to what I have already said as to the potential conflict between the role of the commission and the role of the corporation and the authority, beyond saying that I will also draw the concern of the noble Lord to my right honourable friend's attention.
Lord Annan: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that, possibly because of the remit, certain people think that the remit is entirely what it should be, and that it would be deplored if this remit was re-examined and extended? Would the noble Lord also accept that possibly the small number of complaints which have been received by this commission may reflect some credit on the BBC and the commerial companies which broadcast?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention, which will give a greater balance to the submissions I give to my right honourable friend.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is not a main feature of the commission that it has some independence from the corporation and the authority? Therefore, is it not a perfectly proper organisation for members of the public to write to with complaints about balance and standards?
Lord Elton: My Lords, it would be if it was part of their remit to look at that. That is the question I have been asked to consider.

Dinner
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships to know that dinner will be available this evening at the usual time for a Tuesday of 7.30 p.m.

Business of the House
3.3 p.m.
Baroness Young: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order 34 and paragraphs 10, 11, 12 and 13 of the Rules for the Conduct of Short Debates set out in Appendix D to the Companion to the Standing Orders shall apply to the Motion in the name of the Lord Taylor of Gryfe set down on Wednesday 13th April.—(Baroness Young)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Civil Aviation (Eurocontrol) Bill
Read a third time, and passed.

Public Records (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
Lord Teviot: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read a third time.—(Lord Teviot.)
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to congratulate my noble friend on the speedy passage of this Bill through the House and wish him—or, rather, the Bill—every success in another place. I should like
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to remind the House of what I said at Second Reading. My noble friend has thoughtfully left the timing of implementation open. I then made it clear that the Bill could not come into force as soon as it was passed. A financial study is under way, but no funds have yet been allocated; nor has a location been found for housing the records. But I am very grateful to my noble friend for the help which he has given to the House and for the service he has rendered to the public in promoting this legislation.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble and learned friend for those unexpected comments at this stage, and I take note of all that he says.
On Question, Bill read a third time.
An amendment (privilege) made.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. In doing so, I thank very much my noble and learned friend who in the past has given me assurance, especially in 1979, and also the noble and learned Lord the previous Lord Chancellor. This is a very happy day for me, and I thank your Lordships very much.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Teviot.)
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

British Shipbuilders Bill
3.6 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Modification of British Shipbuilders' functions]:
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): I have to point out that if Amendment No. 1 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 2.
Lord Bruce of Donington Lord Bruce of Donington moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 10, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Lord said: Since the Lord Chairman has ruled that if Amendment No. 1 is not carried—
Lord Aberdare: Is carried.
Lord Bruce of Donington: I beg the noble Lord's pardon. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, when he was moving the Second Reading of this Bill, dealt with the reasons why Section 2 of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977 should cease to have effect. It will be recalled that Section 2 of the 1977 Act imposes

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certain duties on British Shipbuilders. At Section 2(2) it is stated:
"It shall be the duty of British Shipbuilders to promote and secure the promotion by its wholly owned subsidiaries of—

(a) the efficient and economical design, development, production, sale, repair and maintenance of ships and slow speed diesel marine engines; and

(b) research into matters relating thereto".

The way the noble Lord presented this on Second Reading was that it somehow represented a liberation of British Shipbuilders—a relief of the onerous obligation to have a duty. When members of Her Majesty's Government come saying that they want to liberate a public corporation from certain inhibitions, your Lordships must forgive me if I am slightly suspicious of it. It is not normally the attitude, particularly of Her Majesty's present Government, to want to liberate public corporations. I am very curious indeed to see why this step has been carried out.
It will be recalled that the party opposite lays very heavy emphasis indeed on the necessity for people to have duties and responsibilities, as well as certain rights. In more recent years there have been many endeavours to emphasise to the public at large, as well as to corporations, that under a democracy they have not only rights but also duties. There is nothing particularly wrong in a corporation having a specific duty. One of the purposes behind the founding of the original public corporations was that they should not be seen to be merely the creatures of Government or any Government department. The whole idea of the public corporation was that it should have a statutory status all its own, and for the present Government to seek to take away the duties of this particular corporation—British Shipbuilders—must be seen to be in sharp contrast to the original philosophy behind its setting up.
Your Lordships' Committee will recall that in the Electricity Act 1957, for example, duties of a general character were laid upon the Central Electricity Generating Board, and under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 duties were laid upon the coal industry. In such legislation the same phrase is always used: "Charged with the duties of …". I do not think that I should be exaggerating if I were to say that the chairmen of such corporations regard the fact that their coporations are charged with a specific duty, or a series of general duties, as being the bulwark of their independence.
It is quite true that in the 1977 Act the corporation itself is protected against proceedings in the courts. Section 2(10) of the 1977 Act states:
"Nothing in this section shall be construed as imposing upon either Corporation"—
the other corporation referred to is British Aerospace—
"directly or indirectly, any form of duty or liability enforceable by proceedings before any court".
Why therefore should it now be necessary to eliminate the duties as such?
One explanation given by the noble Lord during Second Reading was that the revised form in which the coporation is given powers, subject in certain circumstances to the direction of the Secretary of State, as distinct from duties, is to enable it to embark upon joint ventures. That was the term that was used. If one
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looks at Clause 1(3) of the new Bill, one finds that specific permission is given. The subsection states:
"and British Shipbuilders may also promote the carrying on of any of those activities to such extent as it thinks fit by other persons none of whom need be a wholly owned subsidiary of British Shipbuilders".
I take it that it is upon those words that the noble Lord relies for giving British Shipbuilders powers to embark upon joint ventures, once the Bill has passed. However I really cannot believe that. I accept the noble Lord's assurances in good faith, but if one turns back to the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977, one finds that Section 3(1)(b) states that the corporation may carry on
"with the consent of, or in accordance with the terms of any general authority given by the Secretary of State any other activities to which the consent or authority relates".
Therefore it is quite clear that the power existed even under the old Act of 1977, and in that Act there was nothing that would have prevented British Shipbuilders from participating in joint ventures. To put no finer point on it, I would add that Section 3(2)(c) of the 1977 Act states that the corporation has power
"to enter into partnerships with other persons …".
It is a very fine point. A joint venture is of course a partnership between people for the exercise of a specific function, not necessarily for a certain duration of time. I believe that it is beyond doubt to think that a joint venture would not come under Section 3 of the old Act, taking together the two subsections that I have quoted.
That brings me back to the question of why at this stage the Government wish to eliminate the statutory duties of the corporation; and I wish to put forward another possible explanation. I believe that the use of the term "duty" in the 1977 Act gives British Shipbuilders a degree of independence sufficient to enable it to resist any efforts to mutilate the industry by—to use the colloquial term—"flogging off" vital parts of it. The Government are quite bent on the dismemberment of British Shipbuilders, and indeed have made no secret of their intention, once the time is propitious, to dispose possibly of its warships division, or at any rate a significant part of that division. Therefore, it seems to me that had it been allowed to remain, the word "duty" might have given the chairman of British Shipbuilders sufficient grounds for resisting any endeavours to mutilate the corporation on the basis that they were likely to impinge upon the general duty entrusted to him by Parliament.
It may well be that that is not the case, but I should have thought that it was far better to leave public corporations independent of the Government, with a direct duty imposed by statute. I am firmly of the opinion that the reasons that I have given for the elimination of the duties are valid, and what the Government are really afraid of is that the chairman of British Shipbuilders will take advantage of the 1977 Act in resisting the mutilation to which I have referred. That is why the Government desire to eliminate the duties, and for our part we believe that they should remain. I beg to move.
Lord Glenarthur: I have listened with care to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. I have also

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studied with interest what he said on Second Reading. It is important that British Shipbuilders should be freed from the constraints of the existing legislation to which the noble Lord referred. It is plainly absurd, in our view, that at present British Shipbuilders could be prevented from withdrawing from an activity when it considered it commercially desirable to do so. Repealing Section 2 of the 1977 Act will free British Shipbuilders to choose whether to engage in activities that it is at present obliged by statute to undertake. This is a freedom that the corporation's international competitors enjoy and which the amendment proposed by the noble Lord seeks to deny.
The noble Lord talked further about duties and also referred to Section 3. It is true that British Shipbuilders has very wide powers under Section 3 of the 1977 Act to form businesses and joint ventures and to sell off holdings in wholly-owned subsidiaries. But those powers have to be exercised within all the limitations imposed by the Act, particularly the strict duties imposed by Section 2, such as the duty to promote the mainstream activities of the wholly-owned subsidiaries.
That is one general fundamental restriction. There is another. The existing Act does not contemplate mainstream activities being carried on by partly-owned subsidiaries. As a result, short, perhaps, of distress sales to keep the rest of the mainstream business going, British Shipbuilders is not able to participate in a normal commercial way with the private sector in shipbuilding ventures except in peripheral activities that are not covered by Section 2 duties. What we seek to do is to get rid of the essentially nationalising flavour of the old Act and open the way for flexible arrangements with private enterprise. The noble Lord and the Government are clearly widely at odds on this issue. This was made plain by the noble Lord at Second Reading. Repeal of Section 2 will enable British Shipbuilders to act in its best interests. I must therefore ask your Lordships to reject the amendment.
Lord Bruce of Donington: I should like to draw the noble Lord's attention to Section 3(3) of the 1977 Act, where he will find that the corporation can dispose of any of its wholly-owned subsidiaries with the permission of the Secretary of State. The duties given in the old Act and set out in Section 2 did not act as an effective bar to British Shipbuilders ceasing any of its activities. It is clearly stated in Section 3 that, provided the Secretary of State consents, it can stop. The noble Lord may say that the application to the Secretary of State itself imposes a responsibility. As the Bill installs a whole new series of directions by the Secretary of State which the Secretary of State may give to British Shipbuilders, this seems to be small in comparison. The same is true of other sections. Section 3 states:
"Subject to subsection (3) below, each Corporation shall have power to enter into partnerships with other persons".
If the noble Lord examines the Interpretation Act 1978, he will find that the term "person" includes corporate bodies. So there is no reason why there should not be joint activity. I am afraid that the explanation does not hold.
Lord Glenarthur: I should like briefly to respond to the noble Lord on Section 3. The noble Lord has
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possibly not realised that all of British Shipbuilders powers in Section 3 are subject to duties imposed in Section 2.
Lord Bruce of Donington: The explanations given by the noble Lord are not satisfactory, as he must know. There is no reason at all why British Shipbuilders under the old Act, subject in some instances to the approval of the Secretary of State, could not do anything that it wished to do within its general objects. I have the gravest misgiving, for the reasons I have stated, about eliminating the word "duty" in this instance. The noble Lord gave some clue about it in his last intervention when he was careful to point out that under the old Act the provisions of Section 3 were strictly within the provisions of the section imposing the duty. Therefore, he must regard the duty as being a bar of some kind to his own department. I regret that we have to press the amendment.
3.27 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 76; Not-Contents, 104

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Amherst, E.

Leatherland, L.

Amulree, L.

Listowel, E.

Ardwick, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Aylestone, L.

McNair, L.

Banks, L.

Milford, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Mishcon, L.

Beswick, L.

Nicol, B.

Birk, B.

Oram, L.

Bishopston, L. [Teller.]

Peart, L.

Blease, L.

Phillips, B.

Blyton, L.

Plant, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Briginshaw, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Byers, L.

Rhodes, L.

Chitnis, L.

Rochester, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Collison, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Serota, B.

David, B. [Teller.]

Shinwell, L.

Denington, B.

Simon, V.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Stedman, B.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Ezra, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Tordoff, L.

Glenamara, L.

Underhill, L.

Grey, E.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Walston, L.

Jacques, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Jeger, B.

Whaddon, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

White, B.

Kagan, L.

Willis, L.

Kaldor, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Kennet, L.

Winstanley, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Beloff, L.

Aldenham, L.

Belstead, L.

Allerton, L.

Brookeborough, V.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

1467

Cathcart, E.

Long, V.

Chelwood, L.

Loudoun, C.

Clancarty, E.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Lyell, L.

Cockfield, L.

McAlpine of Moffat, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

McFadzean, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Cox, B.

Mansfield, E.

Craigavon, V.

Margadale, L.

Craigton, L.

Marley, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Merrivale, L.

Daventry, V.

Mersey, V.

Davidson, V.

Mills, V.

De La Warr, E.

Molson, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Newall, L.

Derwent, L.

Northchurch, B.

Drumalbyn, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Dulverton, L.

Onslow, E.

Eccles, V.

Orkney, E.

Ellenborough, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Elles, B.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Elton, L.

Polwarth, L.

Ferrers, E.

Porritt, L.

Ferrier, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Fortescue, E.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Rochdale, V.

Gainford, L.

St. Davids, V.

Gisborough, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Glanusk, L.

Sharples, B.

Glenarthur, L.

Stamp, L.

Glenkinglas, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Gray, L.

Sudeley, L.

Greenway, L.

Swansea, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Taylor of Hadfield, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Terrington, L.

Hayter, L.

Teviot, L.

Hill of Luton, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Trefgarne, L.

Ilchester, E.

Trenchard, V.

Inglewood, L.

Trumpington, B.

Kilmany, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Vivian, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Ward of Witley, V.

Lauderdale, E.

Westbury, L.

Lawrence, L.

Wise, L.

Lindsey of Abingdon, E.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
3.34 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington Lord Bruce of Donington moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 10, at beginning insert ("Subsections (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (9) and (10) of").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 2. The reason for tabling this amendment is to secure a reversal of the decision by the Government to eliminate Section 2(8) of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977, which reads:
"In carrying out its functions under this Act, it shall be the duty of each Corporation to promote industrial democracy in a strong and organic form in its undertakings and the undertakings of its wholly owned subsidiaries".
It was claimed by the noble Lord opposite that one of the functions of the new Bill was to eliminate the responsibilities of the corporation in regard to its commitment to promote industrial democracy. That is something with which we on this side of the Committee most profoundly disagree.
It seems a long time now since the Bullock Report was debated in your Lordships' House; and even on
1468
that occasion, when the party opposite addressed itself to the problem, "it came to bury Bullock, not to praise him". In other words, the party opposite has never done anything else but express its distaste of any form of the promotion of industrial democracy in industry in this country, and this despite the experience of our fellow members in the European Community. Perhaps your Lordships will bear with me if I refer to paragraph 13 of the Bullock Report. It says:
"As part of a general movement to involve employees more effectively in decision-making, some eight countries in Western Europe now have schemes of one kind or another in operation which secure or at least make possible the representation of employees on company boards. It is now 25 years since Mitbestimmung (co-determination) was introduced in the Federal Republic of Germany. This year has seen further steps to increase the proportion of employee representatives on the supervisory boards of companies employing more than 2,000 people. In Sweden, 1976 has also seen confirmation of the three-year experiment in putting employee representatives on company boards. The fact that the West German and Swedish economies, despite differences between the social philosophies of the two countries, have been among the most successful in the world—not least in avoiding the industrial conflict which has cost Britain so dear—has not excaped notice".
Then in the conclusion of the Bullock Report noble Lords will recall that at paragraph 15 it says:
"First, we believe that there is a widespread recognition in this country of what the EEC Green Paper has called 'the democratic imperative' for employee participation, described in that document as follows: 'those who will be substantially affected by decisions made by social and political institutions must be involved in the making of those decisions'".
The debates that have taken place in your Lordships' House and indeed, in another place, and in the country at large, have shown that there is considerable disagreement as to what form industrial democracy should take. There is even division within, for example, certain sections of the trade union movement as to what form industrial democracy might take. So far as I understand it, there are variations of views in both the Liberal Party and, indeed, our own party on this matter. But one thing upon which I think we have all been agreed is that some progress must be made towards industrial democracy. Nothing has been more depressing than the persistent attacks which have been made by the party opposite—whether in Government or not—on the EEC proposals in connection with the formal establishment of industrial democracy in Britain.
We know perfectly well—and there are still many of us in your Lordships' House who remember this—how valuable it was during the war to have, for example, promotion in the Armed Forces taken well away from the previous old boy and social network within which it previously occurred. During the war we had War Office selection boards in order that there could be recruited from the ranks of the Armed Forces people who were fully capable of exercising leadership. Indeed, they proved a very considerable success. It was found that even though in civil life one did not have very much money or social connections—one might even have been a grocer or someone of that kind—nevertheless one could rise to the highest ranks in the Armed Forces. There was no question that the progressive breaking down of the social class barriers which had hitherto subsisted to a very large extent within the Armed Forces themselves contributed powerfully to the unity of the nation as a whole and to the effectiveness of the Armed Forces themselves.
Such, too, was it the case in industry itself during the war. Nor is this a matter for amusement. It is a matter of very great seriousness on which the future of this country may yet very well depend. During and immediately after the war it was found that the whole machinery of consultative committees, through which workers in factories contributed in an ever-increasing degree to the decision-making and to the creative suggestion-making of our wartime factories, proved to be a very decisive advantage in the logistical supply of the struggle itself. The idea that the ordinary worker at the bench should participate more and more in the decision-making process and in the planning process within the works in which he worked persisted for some time afterwards.
Up to now, at any rate, it has generally been accepted that progress in this direction—even though its final form still remains to be argued out and determined—is of enormous potential value to the country. The noble Lord may well say, as indeed he said on Second Reading, that his party still believes in worker participation. All I shall say is that his actions strongly belie it. In its public and political pronouncements over the past three years it has shown a progressive hostility to any kind of worker involvement in management. In fact, in any event it has shown increasing arrogance in its whole attitude towards the ordinary working person. I have no need to go further in this than to quote one of the party's own leading philosophers on the subject. There was a time when Sir Keith Joseph was the party's guru on matters of this kind, but it will readily be agreed that Mr. Peregrine Worsthorne is probably hot second on the list, being the deputy editor of the Conservative Party's house journal, The Sunday Telegraph. This is what he said in March:
"I am a Tory Marxist, in the sense of accepting the need to take sides in the class war, even if, so to speak, on the other side.
It is difficult to overestimate the extent to which the writings of Marx strengthen my conservatism, by making me aware of the nature of the proletarian danger and the need to combat the threat by all means fair and not so fair.
Tories like Sir Ian Gilmour"—
Lord Derwent: Perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord briefly. I am becoming rather fogged. Can the noble Lord explain to me what this has to do with the Bill
Lord Bruce of Donington: Yes, certainly. Even the noble Lord should understand that when one considers the application of a particular clause which has for its purpose the need for the abolition of any move to industrial democracy, it is quite proper—and the noble Lord would do it in his own place—to discuss the attitude of the party opposite towards exactly that.
Lord Derwent: I was not suggesting that it was improper; I just thought that it was rather boring.
Lord Bruce of Donington: I can understand that it will be boring to the noble Lord, but the noble Lord has to take his medicine as well as give it, and I propose to continue. The article in The Sunday Telegraph continues:
"Tories like Sir Ian Gilmour are naive, precisely because they knew nothing of Marx. Although Marx intended to teach the proletariat the fight, he also taught some of the owning class to be equally militant. The present Tory recrudescence owes more to Marx than it does to Adam Smith."
1470
I am suggesting that the attitude of the Conservative Party and the present Government—as exemplified very often not only in the words of the Prime Minister but also in those of Mr. Norman Tebbit—is completely hostile to any progress being made towards industrial democracy. Their inclusion of this particular clause in the Bill proves it, and I invite the Committee to support our amendment. I beg to move.
Viscount Simon: I should like warmly to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. As he rightly said, in different parts of the Committee we take different views as to how best to promote employee involvement in decision-making. He used the phrase, which has now become popular, "industrial democracy", which, as I think I have said in your Lordships' House before, is a phrase which I do not like because I think it gives rise to a misunderstanding of what we are getting at.
However, on employee involvement in decision-making, we on these Benches and our allies are very keen to see this advanced. In the original Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act we had this clause which required the corporations—and now it is only the Shipbuilding Corporation—to promote industrial democracy in a strong and organic form in its undertaking. On Second Reading I think it was suggested that this was a fairly nebulous expression of opinion, and I rather agree; I do not like the way in which it was put. Nonetheless, it was put, and it is a spur to the corporation to use its best endeavours to advance employee involvement in decision-making.
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, at Second Reading doubted whether it was very effective. It may not be very effective. I dare say that if it had never existed, there would be no great point at this stage in putting it in. But I maintain that, as this requirement does exist, a great deal of harm will be done by removing it, for it will give everybody the impression that this is something which the present Government do not want to see followed up. I very much look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has to say on this matter, and I hope he may be a little flexible.
I know that it may be suggested—and I was reminded of this in the discussion yesterday in the House on the Energy Bill—that to leave this duty with British Shipbuilders might be unfair because the proposed hived-off parts would not have this obligation upon them. That is an argument which should be met in this way. The Government and the national industry should lead the way on these things. British Shipbuilders should be prepared to encourage the development of employee involvement, and if other people do not follow that example I am sorry; but at least British Shipbuilders should set the example.
3.51 p.m.
Viscount Rochdale: I had not intended to take part in this debate, but I feel I must say a word in regard to what the noble Lord opposite said on industrial democracy, and particularly in regard to its relationship with shipbuilding. I happen to have taken part in the debate on the Bullock Report in your

1471
Lordships' House. At that time I had only recently given up the chairmanship of what was then the largest company in Northern Ireland: the shipbuilders, Harland and Wolff.
The Government of the day—the noble Lord's Government—had expressed the view that they wanted industrial democracy to be introduced there. I expressed absolute co-operation with them and was willing to help as much as I could. But as things turned out, the way I hoped to do it—and I believe I could have made a success of it, and I say that in all humility—was a different way from the way that the Government wished to do it. Naturally the Government's view prevailed, a plan was drawn up, it had much discussion, but no employee member ever reached the board and, so far as I know, never has reached the board.
The point I particularly want to make is that the responsibility for that was not that of those on this side of the House, it was entirely the responsibility of the trade unions who did not wish to play. That is the situation as it has continued, so far as I know, up to today. I am in favour of a degree of industrial democracy, and I do not believe that my views are very different from those of a great many other of my noble friends on this side of the House, but not necessarily in the way that either is practised in the Community or as recommended by Bullock.
Lord Trefgarne: I am obliged to my noble friend for his intervention, speaking, as he does, with the great weight of experience in a major shipbuilding company. But as I said at Second Reading, industrial democracy goes hand in hand with good management. I reminded your Lordships that in our debate in 1977 the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, who was then speaking for that Government, said:
"Industrial democracy must develop from the people involved".
It should not follow a rigid formulation laid down by Government. The very phrase "strong and organic", the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, admitted had no precise meaning. I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that far at least then as I agree now. That is why we are removing this duty from British Shipbuilders.
In any event, the duty is somewhat inexactly expressed, as the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, admitted. I do not know what "strong and organic" means. It was clear from the debates in 1977 that many of your Lordships did not know what it meant either. Indeed, the Government of that day were wise enough to include subsection (10) in Section 2, which said:
"Nothing in this section shall be construed as imposing upon either Corporation, directly or indirectly, any form of duty or liability enforceable by proceedings before any court.".
I should think not. The courts would have had a field day with that particular subsection.
We are not saying to British Shipbuilders that they should now cease making any attempts to promote employee participation. British Shipbuilders have made considerable efforts in this direction and have established steering groups of employees and management at most yards. The pay agreement
1472
provides for joint monitoring of progress on productivity and other matters. We believe, however, that this should be a matter for British Shipbuilders' management as it is for management in the private sector.
British Shipbuilders' subsidiaries will report progress on industrial democracy following the amendment to the Companies Act 1967 introduced by the recent Employment Act, and I expect British Shipbuilders to do so as well. The directors of the operating subsidiaries also owe a duty to have regard to the interests of employees under Section 46 of the Companies Act 1980. The British Shipbuilders group should be subject to the normal commercial disciplines on this matter to be found in the Companies Act. That is consistent with the whole philosophy of this Bill—British Shipbuilders is to be opened up to ordinary commercial opportunities and the commercial disciplines which go with them.
I believe that it is wrong to impose upon British Shipbuilders and their subsidiaries, and upon them alone, the artificial and curious constraints which are imposed by subsection (8) of Section 2 of the 1977 Act. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will agree to reject this amendment, which would leave those restraints imposed upon them.
Viscount Simon: The noble Lord suggests that this will in any case be done by British Shipbuilders by virtue of the provisions of the Companies Act. But British Shipbuilders is not a Companies Act company, is it?
Lord Trefgarne: British Shipbuilders, as we provide for in the later clauses of the Bill, is to be moved in due course and as opportunity provides back into the environment of the commercial sector. That is the environment that we want British Shipbuilders to operate under, and that indeed is quite different therefore from the proposals in this amendment.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: The noble Lord the Minister, if I may say so with the greatest respect—and I am not being cynical about this—has read his brief with the great charm that he always has in this House. But he did not deal with the point which my noble friend Lord Simon indicated earlier. The Minister said that certain groups had been established, that steering groups had been set up to study certain matters. What he did not deal with—and this is fundamental to this amendment—was what my noble friend Lord Simon said, that the Government and British Shipbuilders should, in the present circumstances, lead the way and set an example to encourage employee involvement. So far as I understood the speech of the noble Lord the Minister—and if I am wrong I will apologise—there was no indication in his reply that there was a definite attempt by the Government to encourage, by statutory form, what we think is so essential, and that is to encourage employee involvement.
Lord Trefgarne: What the noble Lord means by "show the way", as he puts it, is to impose upon British Shipbuilders constraints which are not imposed upon the competition within the private sector in this country, and indeed not imposed in

1473
general terms upon their competition in other countries of the world. The industrial democracy "strong and organic", as the old Act describes it—and that is a description, as I say, which I am not able to comprehend—is a constraint which we seek to have removed from British Shipbuilders because we should like to see them operating in due course as an ordinary company within the normal commercial trading environment of this country.
Lord Bruce of Donington: The noble Lord has delivered himself of some most extraordinary observations concerning the removal of constraints. I know of no complaint by the chairman of British Shipbuilders that this particular section in the 1977 Act imposed any particular constraints or burdens upon them. Indeed, as the noble Viscount, Lord Rochdale, has already said, in the capacity he then was, he actively encouraged participation by the sections of the work force in the running of the affairs of the company in which he was at that time. I am sorry if he experienced any obstruction or discouragement from the unions involved. He made an effort, however, and that is all this is about.
The Minister says he believes in participation. Participation is part of the promotion and process of industrial democracy. Had this part of the Bill laid down a form of industrial democracy which the corporation was bound to follow, that would, of course, have imposed some responsibility, and possibly even a burden on it, because there might have been disagreement as to the form of the industrial democracy. But this is a permissive clause in that it asks the company to promote something. It does not say "Do it", but implies that it should promote and actively encourage something, and worker participation is part of that process. Therefore I cannot see the Government's objection to this aspect of the 1977 Act—that is, unless they have an ideological objection to it, and unless the whole idea of workers in a concern ever participating in the running of their company is so repugnant to them that they cannot bear even its presence in the Bill.
More and more as this Government proceed in office they are pursuing a policy of increasing confrontation with the ordinary working people, and they are not even bothering to disguise it. This part of the Bill, in eliminating this part of the 1977 Act, is a further example of their determination to make their stamp on it; they and the interests they represent are the ones who will rule, and no nonsense about it. Again, they are making a great mistake. The future of our country will be seen as soon as the Thatcher episode—and a sordid episode it is—is over and done with (and that may not take very long either) and then the people will see that only by working co-operatively together for common purposes will the nation be successful and its people attain some degree of that personal serenity to which every individual is entitled. For that reason we say that this part of the Bill is regressive and seeks merely to stamp the whole nature of the Government's authoritarian rule on the country at large, and we invite noble Lords to support our amendment.
4.5 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 83: Not-Contents, 102.

DIVISION NO. 2

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Amherst, E.

Leatherland, L.

Amulree, L.

Listowel, E.

Ardwick, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Aylestone, L.

McCluskey, L.

Banks, L.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Beswick, L.

McNair, L.

Birk, B.

Milford, L.

Bishopston, L.

Mishcon, L.

Blease, L.

Nicol, B.

Blyton, L.

Oram, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Peart, L.

Briginshaw, L.

Phillips, B.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Plant, L.

Byers, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Chitnis, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Collison, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Rhodes, L.

David, B. [Teller.]

Roberthall, L.

Denington, B.

Rochester, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Ezra, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Serota, B.

Foot, L.

Shinwell, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Simon, V.

George-Brown, L.

Stedman, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Glenamara, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Hale, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Underhill, L.

Hunt, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Walston, L.

Jacques, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Jeger, B.

Whaddon, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Willis, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Kagan, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Kennet, L.

Winstanley, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

De Freyne, L.

Aldenham, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Allerton, L.

Derwent, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Dulverton, L.

Beloff, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Belstead, L.

Elles, B.

Braye, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Brookeborough, V.

Elton, L.

Caithness, E.

Falmouth, V.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Ferrers, E.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Ferrier, L.

Cathcart, E.

Fortescue, E.

Chelwood, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L,

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Gainford, L.

Cockfield, L.

Glanusk, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Glenarthur, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Glenkinglas, L.

Cox, B.

Gray, L.

Craigavon, V.

Greenway, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Daventry, V.

Hayter, L.

Davidson, V.

Hylton-Foster, B.

1475

Kilmany, L.

Onslow, E.

Kinloss, Ly.

Orkney, E.

Lane-Fox, B.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Lawrence, L.

Porritt, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Long, V.

Rochdale, V.

Loudoun, C.

St. Davids, V.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Lyell, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

McAlpine of Moffat, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

McFadzean, L.

Sudeley, L.

Mancroft, L.

Swinfen, L.

Mansfield, E.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Margadale, L.

Taylor of Hadfield, L.

Marley, L.

Terrington, L.

Merrivale, L.

Teviot, L.

Mersey, V.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Mills, V.

Trefgarne, L.

Molson, L.

Trenchard, V.

Monk Bretton, L.

Trumpington, B.

Mottistone, L.

Vaux of Harowden, L.

Newall, L.

Vivian, L.

Northchurch, B.

Ward of Witley, V.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Westbury, L.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Organisation etc. of British Shipbuilders' activities]:
4.13 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington Lord Bruce of Donington moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, leave out lines 29 to 34.
The noble Lord said: The amendment relates to the deletion of virtually the whole of subsection (2) of the new Clause 4A referred to in Clause 2 of the Bill. There are two reasons. The first is that the new Clause 2 gives very considerable powers to the Secretary of State. These are by no means confined to his power to order the discontinuance of any of the board's activities nor are they confined even to the powers given here to sell off any or some of British Shipbuilders' assets. On this side of the Committee we do not think that these are powers that the Secretary of State should have, bearing in mind that the Secretary of State is a very important member of the present Government and the present Government have made quite clear their intentions towards British Shipbuilders in two fields: first of all, in their ordinary day-to-day attitude towards the activities of British Shipbuilders as it is now; and, secondly—and I will come to the point presently—as to their plans for disposal. It would be one thing to give the Secretary of State powers to help the activities of British Shipbuilders. That would be a very good thing to do, particularly if one was persuaded that one had a Secretary of State who was willing to do that.
I turn now to the field in which any Secretary of State can be of enormous help to any public corporation whether it be British Shipbuilders or British Steel or whoever it may be. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, in his Second Reading speech dealt with the question of competition. He said, in column 8, on 7th March:
1476
"The Government would be ready to use these powers if BS were to engage in unfair competition with established shipping interests".
That is a very definite statement. What is in doubt, however, is whether the Government are prepared to intervene where BS itself suffers from unfair competition. So far there has been no indication of that.
The signals ought to have been given to any Secretary of State who had the opportunity of reading the chairman's report published on 20th July 1982. I quote from page 13 of the report and accounts covering the year 1981–82 of British Shipbuilders. He said:
"The new excess capacity which has come into operation in South Korea at a time when other major shipbuilders have significantly reduced employment facilities and throughput must be considered irresponsible since it can only damage recovery prospects in the shipping and shipbuildings markets. The depressed price levels at which South Korea has in recent months been prepared to sell new ships to fill their expanded capacity is a matter of great concern for BS and other European shipyards. This competition coupled with the severe decline in the latter part of 1981 of the dry bulk shipping market means that the improvement in the order book will be hard to sustain".
Sir Ronald Atkinson could hardly have been more explicit than that.
What was the reaction by the present Government to that very strong point made about South Korea? Was there any response forthcoming at all? The noble Lord has said that the Government are very willing to intervene if BS competes unfairly with existing shipping interests. That is very nice of them. What are they prepared to do when British Shipbuilders complain of unfair competition from South Korea? Your Lordships will recall—and I hasten to assure the Committee that I will not go through the details again—that on Second Reading I gave the whole sordid, detailed story of the way in which an order for a cable ship was placed in South Korea in unfair competition with British Shipbuilders. Your Lordships will recall the whole series of rather extraordinary events involving a comparatively small and hitherto largely unknown company which successfully by-passed what one would normally have supposed to be the normal procedure on matters of this kind. Indeed, I hazarded the guess on Second Reading—and it certainly has not been denied—that the Department of Trade knew all about it and that, as a consequence. British Steel lost an order which amounted to some £3½ million. This is a not inconsiderable sum.
A whole number of other British firms lost likewise. What was the attitude of the Government towards this? We have only to go to the Select Comittee's report on this particular matter. The House of Commons Select Committee, when going into this question, had the opportunity of questioning the noble Lord's right honourable friend the right honourable Patrick Jenkin on this whole question of competition. This is what Mr. Patrick Jenkin replied on 27th October 1982, which is some time after the observations made by the chairman of British Steel in his report:
"It is certainly not in the interests of the steel-using industries in this country who, if they can get cheaper steel from Brazil, South Africa, Korea or whatever, are not going to go round telling the British Steel Corporation, the Government or anybody else that that is where they got it from, because they are in a very competitive market."

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That is a very surprising observation of detachment by a Minister who is supposed to be a help in safeguarding the interests over which he seeks to take powers of direction.
It would seem to me that the intervention of the Minister is all one way. If it is against British Steel they will support any move; if British Steel wants support they do not give a hang, and indeed they made no intervention whatsoever in this case of an order going to a country obviously guilty of dumping in that their wage levels are but a fraction of what they are in Britain and in Europe, who are under a semi-military dictatorship in any event and whose trade union rules, if they had been applied in Poland, would have aroused the noble Lord's ire in very much the same way that the ire is aroused because of the lack of freedom accorded to Mr. Lech Walesa. So does one trust the present Government to give directions that are in any way beneficial to British Shibuilders? I would submit the answer is, "No".
There can be no trust because the British Government are bent on exposing the whole of British industry, including British Shipbuilders and British Steel, to dumped competition from countries where wages levels are but a fraction of what they are in Europe as a whole; and despite their many protestations of support and robust statements about the necessity for action to prevent dumping, it is in fact contrary to their entire philosophy, and they would be quite happy if other sections of British industry, including British Shipbuilders and British Steel were in fact run into the ground.
The other provison of this Bill is to provide for disposals. It has already been hinted as to the kinds of disposals that are going to take place. Indeed if one moves to pages 26 and 27 of the annual report and accounts of British Steel one understands immediately why the noble Lord and the Government are bent on disposing of the warship section. It is very simple indeed because the warship section, apart from certain isolated parts to which I shall refer, is the only division making a profit. That therefore is ripe for disposal by the Government, however much it might mutilate the total structure of British shipbuilding. It is available for disposal to the various city interests and institutions which give more than formal support and, indeed, give financial support, to the party opposite.
But the important aspect to bear in mind about the disposal of the warship division is that it operates on a cost-plus basis. They cannot make a loss. The warship section gets its contracts from the Ministry of Defence. Its cost procedure is well known; it is ascertained; the actual cost of wages and materials, overheads, various fixed, variable and semi-variable expenditure is all taken into account together with the extra expenditure demanded by the Ministry of Defence for extra quality control. It is the total cost, including overtime and everything else: the procedures are well known.
On top of that the profit is added. There is no possibility of loss. That is the only section, for the moment at any rate, that the party opposite wants to sell off to the city interests who give them such profound support. They might wish, of course, to get rid of Hall Russell in the merchant shipbuilding division for they only made a profit of £63,000; or
1478
Swan Hunter, which made a profit of £83,000 last year. They might want to dispose of certain sections in the engineering division, but I doubt it because the profits made in the other sections—for reasons the noble Lord knows quite well, because he knows the state of the whole shipbuilding industry as and when British Shipbuilders originally took over—are in a very parlous state.
The noble Lord knows quite well that British Shipbuilders, with the Government subventions that have been made, is able to keep in operation precisely because it is able to apply the profits made by the warship building division against the losses that are incurred in the others. If the warship section were taken out it would completely alter the whole structure of British Shipbuilders and would make it more vulnerable to the forces within which it is at the moment compelled to operate.
Therefore we believe that the power to privatise various sections of British Shipbuilders should be taken out of the Bill. We believe that it is contrary to the national interest and that it serves no useful purpose whatsoever from the point of view of the country's economy, from the point of view of the employees or from the point of view of the managers or the executives. The only purpose that it serves—the one with which the noble Lord is well familiar—is to provide an extra bit of private pelf for those people who might be prepared to buy a cost-plus profit concern. I beg to move.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: The proposed power of veto of changes in the organisation, contained in that part of the Bill which Amendment No. 3 seeks to delete, is a far more modest and less interventionist power than that created by the then Government in 1977. Section 5 of the 1977 Act gave that Government wide-ranging powers over the way in which the corporation was organised. Those have never been used—and quite right, too. The management of the corporation is best placed to propose how the activities it controls should be organised. It should not be subject to the incursive power of Section 5 of the Act, which is being repealed. However, the Government have a natural interest in the efficient organisation of a public sector industry and, if the amendment were accepted, they would have no power to prevent the corporation from making changes in the organisation which, in the Government's view, were likely to be detrimental to public policy.
The corporation and its subsidiaries are at present organised in a decentralised way, with activities contained in discrete and publicly accountable profit centres. This we believe to be right. It brings discipline and incentive if it is known that the results of a group's efforts will be available and open to public examination. We believe, therefore, that a power which can be used to preserve this type of organisation is necessary, but is also all that is necessary. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will reject Amendment No. 3.
May I speak at the same time, as the noble Lord did, to Amendment No. 4? That amendment is, I am afraid, quite unacceptable to the Government. It is, so far as we can ascertain, designed to wreck the Bill by

1479
removing from it those provisions which are to give the Government important reserve powers. In our view, it is essential, particularly where public and private sectors of an industry are in competition, that the Government should have powers to determine where the boundary line between the sectors should lie. It is well-known that there are fears of subsidised unfair competition from the public sector—fears which are inevitably stronger during a recession. When the Government are trying to ensure fair play, their position will be considerably strengthened by holding the reserve power to direct the public sector to withdraw from an activity. We hope that we shall not need to use these powers, but we shall be ready to do so if unfair competition persists.
The noble Lord asked me whether we would be willing to intervene to assist British Shipbuilders in the face of unfair competition, perhaps from the Far East. The United Kingdom's shipbuilding industry, in common with those of other European countries, receives assistance to help secure orders against Far East competition. We are continuing our efforts, along with our EEC partners, in the OECD working party on shipbuilding to bring about a concerted reduction in all aids to shipbuilding, both direct and indirect. Strong representations have been made through the OECD about the share of orders taken by Japan, for example, and the OECD have also taken a welcome initiative to open a dialogue with the Korean industry on world shipbuilding problems.
I said that we would hope not to have to use these powers. Similarly, we hope that we shall not need to fall back on the proposed powers to require British Shipbuilders to dispose of assets. We hope to act in agreement with the corporation. But we believe it necessary to have this power. There could be circumstances where the Government, taking a broader view of the public interest, differ from the corporation. That is understandable. The corporation will be bound to examine the question of disposals from the standpoint of the impact upon the corporation itself. The Government would look at the interests of the corporation, the interests of those parts being disposed of and the interests of the rest of the industry. Without these powers, the public sector of the industry would have unusual freedom. The equivalent of its shareholders would have little control over the extent of its activities, and I think it proper and desirable that the Government should have this control. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will reject Amendment No. 4 as well.
Lord Ezra: As someone who was concerned for some years with the management of a public corporation, I should like to express a degree of concern about the matters being dealt with under these two amendments. It seems to me that the Government are here proposing to take certain specific rights of intervention which are generally absent in the case of other corporations. Indeed, the directions which the Government usually give are of a general nature. I recall that there was a discussion in the early days of this Government in which there was some debate as to whether or not the Government should take on specific powers of direction, and the Government
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themselves decided not to do so. It seems to me that this is not the spirit in which these changes in the law are being proposed.
I must confess to feeling there is a degree of contradiction between the arguments used by the noble Lord the Minister in respect of Clause 1, which we debated a moment ago, when he argued strongly in favour of removing a restriction which applied specifically to British Shipbuilders, and this case, where it seems to me that there is an instance of imposing restrictions which would apply specifically to them. Trying to visualise this in the position which I previously occupied, I must say that I would find it very difficult to seek to conduct, in an effective and commercial manner, the affairs of the corporation for which I was then responsible if I felt that the Minister could intervene on any specific issue of a kind indicated in this clause. I believe that it requires a little more reflection before these changes are introduced into the law.
4.37 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: The noble Lord, in his reply, made no further mention of his advertised plans to dispose of certain parts of the warship division, which were referred to by him on Second Reading. For the record, therefore, will he confirm or deny my statement that warship activities carried on by the warship division of British Shipbuilders are on a cost-plus basis to the Ministry of Defence or to various other ministries? Will he confirm that that is the case or, alternatively, deny it?
Lord Trefgarne: I am not in a position to give the noble Lord details of each and every contract existing between the various warship builders and the Ministry of Defence, or indeed the warship builders and any other customer that they may have. I understand that some of the contracts referred to are, indeed, on the basis that the noble Lord described, but other contracts are, of course, on a fixed price tender basis.
Lord Bruce of Donington: I am most grateful to the noble Lord. My information is that the great bulk of the contracts of the warship division are, in fact, on a cost-plus basis. Therefore, the element of risk is very limited indeed, and the possibility of profit is rather more than a probability—amounting almost to a certainty. The noble Lord did not refer in any way to the point that I made to him about the Government's assistance to British Shipbuilders or, for that matter, to any other public corporation when faced with unfair competition, other than saying that they paid very diligent attention to it and would make the utmost representations that they could, in conjunction with either their colleagues in the GATT or their colleagues in the European Community.
Lord Trefgarne: That is not quite fair. I said also that we provide cash assistance to British Shipbuilders in respect of specific orders when they are faced with direct competition from the Far East or elsewhere.
Lord Bruce of Donington: The noble Lord knows as well as anybody else that the intervention fund was established at a certain figure, which takes into account some, and only some, of the adverse circumstances

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experienced by British Shipbuilders. It is calculated to bring British Shipbuilders on to roughly the same basis as its Western European competitors, or its competitors from what I euphemistically term "the free West". No special help is given by the Government, through the intervention fund or otherwise, to enable British Shipbuilders to compete with dumped competition from Far Eastern states such as Korea. I am not referring to Japan. I am referring to countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Brazil, whose wage rates are a mere fraction—under one-quarter—of those payable in Europe and who can therefore undercut the prices quoted by any of the other Western European states.
The noble Lord may have seen in the Financial Times of 25th March that British Shipbuilders won a £25 million order from Ethiopia for some ships. He will be interested to know that the basis of the quotation to Ethiopia was precisely the same as that upon which British Shipbuilders quoted for the Central Electricity Generating Board cable ship, the contract for which, under rather mysterious circumstances, went to South Korea.
What I and I am sure the Committee would like to know is how the Government propose to act in relation to British Shipbuilders in respect of competition on what I would call the dumped basis. The noble Lord's noble friend Lord Cockfield will be able to supply him with the full particulars because he went to the recent GATT negotiations and expressed some concern about the competitive challenge offered by what GATT term the newly industrialised states—not the developing countries, not the underdeveloped countries but the newly industrialised countries which operate under conditions of near dictatorship, such as South Korea, Taiwan and to a limited extent Brazil. I, and I am sure the Committee, would like to have more positive reassurance of action by the Secretary of State which would prevent such sordid cases as that of the cable ship ever occurring again.
Lord Trefgarne: I do not think that the Committee would wish me to be dragged into the details of a specific contract such as the one to which the noble Lord referred. In any event, I do not have in front of me the details of that contract. South Korea is not a member of OECD, but they do, I believe, although I stand open to correction, subscribe to GATT and there are regulations of widely different kinds under the GATT régime relating to dumping and assistance to shipbuilding. If the noble Lord has specific evidence of a specific case where regulations such as these to which South Korea subscribes have been breached, naturally I shall have the matter looked at.
Lord Bruce of Donington: Is the noble Lord informing the Committee that after giving detailed information concerning this cable ship to the House at Second Reading his department has not even bothered to investigate it?
Lord Trefgarne: I am not sure what allegations the noble Lord is trying to make. He did not say at Second Reading that in some way South Korea has broken the regulations to which both they and we subscribe. Is that what the noble Lord is saying now?
Lord Bruce of Donington: I am saying that it is the business of Her Majesty's Government to protect British companies wherever it is proper for them to be protected. In other words, it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government to give to public enterprises the same degree of protection as that which they are prepared to extend to private concerns. I am also saying that it is the official policy, so I am told, of the Central Electricity Generating Board to buy British.
Lord Trefgarne: What I want the noble Lord to do, if he is able to do so, is to tell me where South Korea broke the regulations. He is not able, I believe, to do that.
Lord Bruce of Donington: I am not alleging that South Korea broke any rules. I am suggesting that there has been gross negligence by Her Majesty's Government.
4.46 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 3) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 67; Not-Contents, 104.

DIVISION NO. 3

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Kilmarnock, L.

Amulree, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Ardwick, L.

Leatherland, L.

Aylestone, L.

Longford, E.

Banks, L.

McCluskey, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

McNair, L.

Beswick, L.

Mayhew, L.

Birk, B.

Milford, L.

Bishopston, L. [Teller.]

Nicol, B.

Blease, L.

Oram, L.

Blyton, L.

Peart, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Phillips, B.

Briginshaw, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Byers, L.

Rochester, L.

Chitnis, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Collison, L.

Shinwell, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Simon, V.

David, B.

Stedman, B.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Ezra, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Strabolgi, L.

George-Brown, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Glenamara, L.

Underhill, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Walston, L.

Jacques, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Jeger, B.

Whaddon, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Winstanley, L.

Kennet, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Aldenham, L.

Cathcart, E.

Allerton, L.

Chelwood, L.

Avon, E.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Cockfield, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Beloff, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Belstead, L.

Cox, B.

Brookeborough, V.

Craigmyle, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Cranbrook, E.

1483

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Margadale, L.

Daventry, V.

Marley, L.

Davidson, V.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

De La Warr, E.

Merrivale, L.

Denham, L.

Mersey, V.

Drumalbyn, L.

Molson, L.

Duncan-Sandys, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Mottistone, L.

Elles, B.

Newall, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Norfolk, D.

Elton, L.

Northchurch, B.

Erroll, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Ferrers, E.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Ferrier, L.

Orkney, E.

Fortescue, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Gainford, L.

Gisborough, L.

Porritt, L.

Glanusk, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Glenkinglas, L.

Rochdale, V.

Gray, L.

St. Davids, V.

Greenway, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Sharples, B.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Stamp, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Killearn, L.

Sudeley, L.

Kilmany, L.

Swinfen, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Swinton, E. [Teller.]

Lane-Fox, B.

Taylor of Hadfield, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Terrington, L.

Lawrence, L.

Teviot, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Long, V. [Teller.]

Trefgarne, L.

Loudoun, C.

Trenchard, V.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Trumpington, B.

Lyell, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

McFadzean, L.

Vivian, L.

MacLehose of Beoch, L.

Westbury, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Wise, L.

Mancroft, L.

Wynford, L.

Mansfield, E.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendment No. 4 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall be agreed to?
4.54 p.m.
Viscount Simon: Before we agree Clause 2, I have two questions I wanted to ask the noble Lord the Minister. As this is a rather long clause, perhaps it would be convenient if I mentioned the page and line references. The first question relates to page 2, lines 31–32. Your Lordships will see a reference to "activities that have fallen to be carried on" under the ultimate control of the corporation. I was wondering whether before the next stage of the Bill the Minister would care to consult with the draftsman because it seems to me that the words "fallen to be carried on" are not very apposite. Since under the Bill British Shipbuilders will have no duties to perform, because those are all being eliminated, it seems to me that the activities they carry on must be the result of positive decisions by the board acting within their powers. Can these really be said to, "fall to be undertaken"? The word "fall" suggests to me an inevitability that is not there. I suggest that there must be another word which would be more appropriate.
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My second point is, I am afraid, a little more important. It arises at page 3, line 7. Subsection (2) reads:
"The Secretary of State shall not give any direction under subsection (1) above unless he is satisfied that the giving of it will further the national interest".
I believe that similar words have appeared in other legislation. I wonder whether the noble Lord can tell the Committee whether there has ever been any judicial decision as to what these words mean—"will further the national interest". I would suggest that any Secretary of State, whether he supports the party opposite or the Labour Party or the Liberal Party, will believe that the policies of his party are in the national interest. He will believe it genuinely; that is why he belongs to that party.
This leaves me with this difficult question. Supposing a decision is challenged as to whether a policy is in the national interest. We do not—do we?—want it referred to the courts to decide whether the policy of the Government is in the national interest. That would be a disaster in the case of any Government. That would bring the courts solidly into politics. I am wondering whether there is any ruling as to what this phrase means, because an honest Secretary of State—and we believe that all Secretaries of State will be honest—will, of course, believe that what he does is in the national interest; otherwise he would not do it. It seems to me that this clause might lead to some very uncomfortable discussions, and eventually, as I have said, references to the courts, which I would regard as most undesirable.
Lord Trefgarne: If I may deal with the noble Viscount's second point first, these, as he says, are hallowed words; they have appeared in at least one other piece of legislation, and I am certain that if I looked I would find more. The one that immediately comes to mind is the Iron and Steel Act 1981, and subsequently I think they appeared in the 1982 consolidation of that Act and some others. Whether those particular words have ever been tested in a court I rather doubt, but perhaps I can inquire into that, too, and write to the noble Viscount on that particular point.
The noble Viscount also asked about the words "fallen to be carried on" as they appear in subsection (2) of Section 4A of the original Act as amended by this Bill. The answer to that is that they seem to me to be entirely appropriate words. I will nonetheless take those words away and consult with the draftsman to make sure there is no inadvertent slip-up, and again write to the noble Viscount.
Viscount Simon: I am much obliged to the noble Lord.
On Question, Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 5 not moved.]
Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.

Supplementary Benefit (Resources) Amendment Regulations 1983
5 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 7th March be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, and with your Lordships' permission I will speak at the same time to the second Motion in my name and then move it formally when we reach it. Since the amendment to the resources regulations is straightforward, I think it would be helpful to your Lordships if I spent more time on the housing benefit consequential amendments to the supplementary benefit regulations.
Your Lordships will recall that housing benefit brings together two current schemes of help with housing costs—local authority rent and rate rebate and rent allowance schemes and supplementary benefit. The removal of housing requirements from the various sets of supplementary benefit regulations and the necessary adjustments due to housing benefit changes have proved to be a complicated task. However, I am glad to be able to tell your Lordships that the end is in sight. I propose to describe only the more significant provisions in the final set of regulations now before the House. There are some technical adjustments which I shall naturally be willing to resolve if any noble Lord so wishes.
The first amendment of significance occurs at Regulation 2(5)(b), which provides for an addition to housing benefit supplement. This arises out of a point which I believe was first picked up by the Disability Alliance. As your Lordships know, the supplement protects those who would otherwise be brought below supplementary benefit level after paying that part of their rent and rates not rebated by the local authority. Supplementary benefit recipients who must pay an inescapable charge for amenities—for example, heating—are protected if their charge is high by having the amount of their charge above a standard amount included in their rebate. This means that no supplementary benefit claimant in this position is obliged to find any more than, for example, £5.60 a week for heating from his income. This amendment puts the housing benefit supplement recipient in exactly the same position. We do not think that there are many people who could be adversely affected in this way, but there may be some 5,000 of them and they could lose quite considerable sums—up to £5 or more a week. I am sure your Lordships will agree that we should put this right by making this regulation.
If a householder has non-dependent adults in his household, a deduction is made from his supplementary benefit. We have made a number of changes to the provisions for these non-dependant deductions. In Regulation 2(6)(b) we have provided for no non-dependant deduction to be made from supplementary benefit housing requirements where the claimant is already having a deduction made in the calculation of his housing benefit. This applies particularly to those who are buying a share in the equity of their home and paying rent on the balance. It would
1486
clearly be wrong to make two non-dependant deductions merely because their housing costs can be met only by combining housing benefit and supplementary benefit.
It is at Regulation 2(6)(c) that perhaps the most important change is made. The regulations currently provide that a full deduction shall be made—£4·70 per week—unless the non-dependant is in receipt of supplementary benefit, of pensionable age, or aged under 21. This meant that some unemployed or sick people, whose incomes were only a little above supplementary benefit levels, could have difficulty in paying the full contribution to housing costs. We have therefore provided that the deduction in such cases should be reduced to £2·20 a week providing the non-dependant has been in receipt of certain benefits related to sickness or unemployment for at least 13 weeks and has income comprising only one or more of unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, maternity allowance, injury benefit or child benefit.
The regulations also provide transitional protection for those few claimants whose benefit would otherwise be reduced by the provisions of these and the earlier sets of amendment regulations. I shall mention one in particular. Your Lordships will recall that from 4th April 16 and 17 year-olds will not be eligible for the non-householder housing contribution. My honourable friend the Minister for Social Security undertook to protect young persons under age 18 who are receiving supplementary benefit when the change comes into effect. This has been done at Regulation 2(7)(b). Young persons age 16 or 17, providing they are receiving benefit in the week commencing 28th March, will continue to receive the non-householder contribution for as long as they remain in receipt of supplementary benefit as non-householders.
I shall now turn to the short set of regulations which introduce a new partial disregard of adoption allowances to the supplementary benefits scheme. Adoption agencies are now able to introduce schemes for the payment of adoption allowances in cases where without such help a suitable adoption would not be possible. We anticipate that this new development will be of particular help to long-term foster families and for children whose special needs make them difficult to place. When the adoption agencies began to draw up their schemes, they expressed strong concern about the effect of the existing supplementary benefit regulations. These would require the whole allowance to be taken into account in the family's benefit assessment, subject only to the normal £4 disregard. An adoption allowance would thus be of substantially less value to a family on supplementary benefit than to other adoptive families.
We recognise, as do the Social Security Advisory Committee in its helpful and very thorough report on the draft regulations, that this problem raises difficult issues of principle for the supplementary benefits scheme. We concluded, however, that it was important to allow the adoption allowance initiative a fair trial for all families, including those on supplementary benefit. The draft amending regulations therefore introduce a disregard of that part of an allowance in excess of the adopted child's supplementary benefit requirements. This will ensure that the full allowance is available to put towards the

1487
child's welfare. We are bringing forward this regulation on the same experimental footing as the adoption allowance initiative itself. The time for long-term decisions will be when the future of adoption allowances themselves comes to be reviewed in the light of experience gained during the present experimental period.
I commend both sets of regulations to your Lordships, and I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 7th March be appproved.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I am sure we are all indebted to the Minister for the clear way in which he has tried to lead us through all these complications. Successive Governments have found that it is very difficult to express regulations referring to social security matters in clear and understandable terms for the people most concerned; that is, the beneficiaries. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to say that the department will be publishing translations in leaflet form which are intelligible to those most affected, who are often those least able to follow the regulations, with their frequent cross-references, which are put before Parliament.
I know that in Command Paper 8788 in respect of amendments to the directors' earnings-related contributions it is said that the Government will be sending out leaflets; but in the other orders relating to people who may be equally concerned there is no specific reference to the intention to send out leaflets or to take any action to make these regulations understandable to those most concerned with them.
I want to refer first to the Supplementary Benefit (Resources) Amendment Regulations 1983. Of course we all welcome the more generous ideas about children who are adopted. I understand that this matter has not been through the House of Commons yet but that is no reason why we should not discuss it tonight.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness very rudely, but I understand that they are being taken, I think, today or tomorrow in the other place.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, the noble Lord is not being rude; he never is. I was not sure about the clock, as to whether the regulations had actually gone through the House of Commons yet.
One aspect that worries me somewhat is that we are cross-referenced to the 1983 Report of the Social Security Advisory Committee in this connection; but when I tried to get hold of a copy of that report I was advised by our excellent Library (in whom I have total faith) that this is not available. I could not read the 1983 account. If this is available to some Members, and if there is a mistake in the Library, I am sorry about that; but I was informed very firmly that the 1983 Report of the Social Security Advisory Committee is not yet available. I hope that I am wrong, but I felt that I must mention this. I had honestly tried to do
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my homework on this and I was unable to make out the cross-references. I have of course Command Paper 8824, but there did seem to me to be some diversion between the adoption allowances payable and the contents of the unseen committee report. It may be that when the noble Lord the Minister replies he can help me to work this out somewhat.
On the second matter to which the noble Lord the Minister referred, I understand this went through the Commons on the nod. As the noble Lord the Minister says, this is the most complicated and difficult problem. I am finding that many people who are entitled to these benefits are totally confused about them. I want to ask just one or two questions. On page 4 of the draft statutory instrument there is a reference to:
"a non-dependant who is receiving full-time education at an educational establishment and whose needs are provided for, in whole or in part, by the claimant or his partner".
What does "in part" mean? Does it mean 5, 10 or 20 per cent.? If I go on, I find that in paragraph (d) on page 10 of the Explanatory Note there is the statement:
"it is provided that no deduction at all shall be made in respect of certain students and boarders".
How certain is certain? Who are these "certain students" for whom no deduction is to be made? This must be very unclear to a couple who have a son or a daughter studying at a polytechnic or who is working as an apprentice or an articled clerk. What is the connection between paragraph (d) on page 10 and paragraph (e) on page 4? I apologise if your Lordships think that this is nit-picking; but I assure your Lordships that for the families concerned these points are of vital importance.
On page 10 at paragraph (a), there is a reference to heating:
"A restriction on the applicability of certain amounts for heating is limited to householders but extended to include those that are co-owners".
This is a very puzzling statement to ordinary people. Is the householder a tenant; is he an owner? What is a co-owner? Who is excluded under this statement from applying for a heating allowance? In fact I must say to your Lordships that the regulations about heating are very confused and are causing a great deal of discussion and puzzlement.
I refer your Lordships back to page 4, paragraph (c), which mentions subsection (6)(a)(ii), which refers to non-dependants who are getting
"sickness benefit under section 14"
of the Act. I must ask the Minister whether that would include people who are getting the new statutory sickness benefit from their employers. That is very unclear to some of the people most concerned.
Those are the main points which I wish to raise on these first two orders before your Lordships and I do so with all understanding of the difficulties and the complications of this situation. But I am sure that it would be very helpful if some of these points could be met, and in any case I hope that the Minister will take up my point about the necessity of getting plain leaflets out to the people concerned. I do not understand why one of the documents before us tonight says that directors are to have a leaflet telling them about their

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earnings-related contributions but there is no reference in any of the other papers to proposals for publication. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that he has very much in mind the need to make these complications clear to the people most concerned.
5.17 p.m.
Lord Banks: My Lords, I should like to join the noble Baroness in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for his explanation of these orders. I think perhaps the most important one—although, as the noble Lord said, it is the more straightforward—is the order which deals with the Supplementary Benefit (Resources) Amendment Regulations 1983. As the noble Lord said, it raises a matter of principle which created a minor crisis of conscience for the Social Security Advisory Committee.
As the noble Lord explained, local authorities and other adoption agencies are now able to submit schemes for the payment of allowances to people who adopt children in circumstances where adoption would not otherwise be financially possible. This, as the noble Lord said, is to be for an experimental period of seven years. But, where parents are on supplementary benefit, the allowance is counted as income and therefore it is deducted from supplementary benefit and they lose the benefit. Foster parents, on the other hand, do not lose in these circumstances. They do not lose since the child is not regarded as being legally part of the family unit.
The Government have decided to put the adopting parents who are receiving supplementary benefit in the same position as foster parents in similar circumstances. This created this dilemma for the Social Security Advisory Committee: Should they opt for justice as between foster parents and adopting parents or should they opt for justice as between different recipients of supplementary benefit? It is of course a breach of the normal rules and procedure to exempt the income from the computation for supplementary benefit, although of course this is only for a trial period of seven years.
I am glad that both the Government and the Social Security Advisory Committee have decided—although in the latter case with some misgiving—for justice as between foster parents and adoptive parents. I believe that that is right. Certainly if those on low incomes but not on supplementary benefit or family income supplement are to be helped by adoption allowances over and above their normal income, then so should those on supplementary benefit be assisted. I should like to ask the Minister whether I am right in suggesting that those who are not on supplementary benefit, nor on family income supplement, but who are on low incomes and so without the allowance would find it difficult to adopt, are entitled to the allowance. Am I right in saying that they would be eligible for an adoption allowance?
Whether or not they are, the present position would be a financial disincentive to foster parents to adopt. The problem that is raised by this conflict (if that is the right word to use) between the adoption allowance and supplementary benefit is the kind of problem which always arises with means-tested benefits. It will be very important to monitor the comparative position of
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those on family income supplement, who will have no disregard, though we are assured that, while losing, they will not lose so greatly as will those on supplementary benefit. As I say, it will be very important to monitor the situation to see whether it works out in that way. I think it worth mentioning that the Social Security Advisory Committee once again states that in its view today's supplementary benefit rates are inadequate.
If we turn to the other regulations, which are consequential upon the coming into operation of the Housing Benefits Regulations 1982, I think that we see that they ease the position created by the change to housing benefit, and in so far as they are designed to achieve that, we welcome them. As the noble Baroness said, this is a very complicated field. I have no specific question to ask the Minister with regard to the regulations, but I should like to know when we may expect consolidation, since it is extremely difficult to operate from different sets of regulations and to relate one regulation to another before one can know where one is. We on these Benches are content that the regulations should be approved.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, we on this Bench also wish, briefly, to thank the noble Lord for his lucid introduction of the regulations. From the moment of the passing of the Social Security and Housing Benefits Act 1982 it was clear that there would have to be substantial amendments to the supplementary benefit regulations, and now we have them. I rather sympathise with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger. One of the original purposes of the 1982 Act was to remove the confusion resulting from two types of rent and rates entitlement, and it would be a pity if we ended up with confusion worse confounded. Therefore, I, too, should like to ask the noble Lord what plans his department has for issuing guidance in simpler terms—I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, referred to a translation—not so much perhaps to claimants themselves as to those bodies which are called upon to advise beneficiaries and claimants. Certainly consolidation is desirable for parliamentary purposes, but it will not be of much assistance to the ordinary beneficiary. I hope that we can hear something from the noble Lord about his department's plans in this respect. Otherwise, I think that we can say that, along with our Liberal friends, we welcome the general burden of the regulations.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I had to agree with all noble Lords and the noble Baroness who spoke when they said that these matters really are extraordinarily complicated. The noble Lord, Lord Banks, asked me when we could expect a consolidation measure to bring all the regulations under one heading. I agree with the noble Lord that that would be highly desirable. Without taking advice I am not certain quite what timescale is envisaged, or indeed whether we propose to take such action, though I feel sure that it is somewhere in the pipeline. Perhaps I may make some inquiries and write to the noble Lord about it.
I was especialy asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, about what measures had been taken to bring these matters to the public notice, and in particular to those people who might be affected by them. We are running a

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national press advertising campaign to tell claimants in simple terms about the administrative changes. The campaign started in January, and will continue until the end of March. In addition, local authorities and local offices will be letting individual claimants know how the new schemes will affect them. For social workers and others who advise claimants we have produced a special edition of Social Security Notes, which explains how the new scheme will work. A supplement to the Supplementary Benefit Handbook, giving details of the supplementary benefit changes, is also available. Our regional information officers will also be giving publicity to the scheme at local level.
The noble Lord, Lord Banks, also asked whether we would keep under review the question of people with family income supplement particularly with regard to the adoption allowance arrangements. I can assure the noble Lord that we shall be doing that. As I said in my opening remarks, the scheme with regard to the adoption allowance is an experimental one, and all these points will need to be taken into account when in due course we review the scheme as a whole.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, quite properly also raised a number of detailed points about the regulations. I wonder whether she will allow me to write to her with answers to all those points. I do not wish to duck anything that noble Lords put to me across the Floor of the House, but perhaps the noble Baroness would prefer a considered, reflective reply, rather than something off the top of my head. I hope that your Lordships will agree to the first Motion.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Supplementary Benefit (Housing Benefits) (Requirements and Resources) Consequential Amendment Regulations 1983
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 17th March be approved.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Pneumoconiosis, Byssinosis and Miscellaneous Diseases Benefit (Amendment) Scheme 1983
Lord Lyell Lord Lyell rose to move, That the draft scheme laid before the House on 18th February be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the draft scheme. The purpose of the Pneumoconiosis, Byssinosis and Miscellaneous Diseases Benefit (Amendment) Scheme 1983 is to make changes to the principal scheme—that is, the Pneumoconiosis, Byssinosis and Miscellaneous Diseases Benefit Scheme 1983—as a consequence of the abolition of injury benefit from 6th April 1983. The amendment scheme also makes provisions similar to those in the industrial injuries scheme for Pneumoconiosis, Byssinosis and Miscellaneous Diseases Benefit Scheme beneficiaries who go abroad.
The principal scheme provides for benefit to be paid out of the National Insurance Fund for disablement, or death, caused by certain diseases if they result from employment before 5th July 1948, and neither workmen's compensation nor benefit under the industrial injuries scheme is payable. Under the principal scheme, increases may be paid for dependent wives and children. These increases are related to what would be payable under the industrial injuries scheme to someone receiving injury benefit. But injury benefit is abolished from 6th April 1983, by the provisions of Section 39 of the Social Security and Housing Benefits Act 1982. Therefore the principal scheme must be amended to change references to injury benefit to references to sickness benefit.
Your Lordships may care to note that Articles 3 and 4 of the amendment scheme which we have before us this evening amend Articles 5 and 6 respectively of the principal scheme by removing references to injury benefit and replacing them with references to sickness benefit. The changes are purely technical and do not affect—I stress this—the amount of benefit payable. Dependency benefits for wives and children will continue to be payable at the lower rates off £15.45 and 30p respectively. If the beneficiary is receiving unemployment supplement, he will still get the higher rates of £18.85 and £7.95 respectively.
We are also taking the opportunity in Article 2 to make good a deficiency in the scheme for beneficiaries who take the chance to leave the United Kingdom temporarily. Until 1975 there was provision for beneficiaries to continue receiving unemployment supplement, together with any increases for dependants, while they were abroad if they met certain conditions. These conditions were contained in industrial injuries regulations which were amended in 1975 with the result that provision for beneficiaries under the scheme in these circumstances was lost. In fact, no cases of beneficiaries receiving unemployability supplement who have gone abroad have arisen since then. With only 11 unemployability supplement cases under the scheme and an average age of 75, it is unlikely there will be cases involving absence abroad in the future. However, to cover the possibility, Article 2 in effect restores the position to that before 1975 for beneficiaries who leave the United Kingdom while receiving unemployability supplement whether or not they have dependants.
Article 2 also tidies up the provisions for beneficiaries receiving constant attendance allowance or exceptionally severe disablement allowance who go abroad. The article sets out the circumstances in which these two allowances will continue to be payable to beneficiaries outside the United Kingdom. Previously, the scheme cross-referred to the corresponding regulations governing industrial injuries claims. Again, there have been no cases affected by these provisions in recent memory and none is expected.
With that, I hope, brief explanation of this rather technical scheme, I beg to commend it to your Lordships.
Moved, That the draft scheme laid before the House on 18th February be approved.— (Lord Lyell.)
5.32 p.m.
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for setting out so clearly what is before us. I wish only to clarify one or two points. It is a question of making clear to those concerned what the Government have in mind. The draft scheme is an expensive piece of paper costing 75p. That is extraordinarily inflationary. Article 2 amending Article 4(4) of the principal scheme states in paragraph (b):
"a person shall not be disqualified from receiving an increase of allowance under article 8 by reason of being temporarily absent from the United Kingdom during the period of 6 months from the date on which such absence commences".
I should like to ask the Minister this. If a man is going off to see his daughter who has been so unwise as to emigrate with an Australian and set up on the other side of the world—he perhaps wants to visit her and the grand-children—how does he know before he starts that he will be there for six months? Maybe his son-in-law cannot stand the sight of him. He may not like the weather. On the other hand, he may like it so much that he wants to stay. Is it the intention firmly to hold to the six months? I ask that question because the sentence goes on to say:
"or during such longer period as the Secretary of State may, having regard to the purposes of the absence and any other factors which appear to him to be relevant, allow".
Does this mean that a person going abroad has to ask the Secretary of State? Does he ask the Secretary of State halfway through his stay? Or is he expected to ask the Secretary of State when he is on the way home? It is important that this matter should be made clear. Under paragraph (c) it is stated that
"a person shall not be disqualified from receiving an increase of allowance under Article 7"—
without giving any duration. I assure the Minister that I am trying to be helpful. I am endeavouring to state what I would feel if I was a person in this position trying to read the draft statutory instrument. The explanatory note on page 3 states that the person concerned,
"is not disqualified from receipt of benefit during a temporary absence from the United Kingdom".
There is no reference to the actual duration of "temporary". This must be confusing for people who do not know whether six months is temporary and how temporary is temporary. I am not raising these points from any adversarial position. I am merely trying to find out for those who may be concerned what they can expect. It is a serious matter for the individuals concerned. I hope the Minister will be able to make clear whether the explanatory note on page 3 has any connection with paragraphs (b) and (c) on page 2 and, if so, which takes priority.
5.36 p.m.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords would wish to thank the noble Baroness for her close scrutiny of this extremely complicated scheme. I am sure that the Official Report of your Lordships' House will wing its way, certainly to the Australian High Commission and I suspect eastwards. I am sure that the noble Baroness is doing great things for her own chances of acceptance in that happy land by her comments about the wisdom or otherwise of daughters of beneficiaries of these schemes heading for
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Australia. I hope that the airliners will not be decanting the noble Baroness or other persons over the Tasman Sea. The noble Baroness also gave major plugs for Australia, although I do not know the reasons, and for the telecommunications industry, when she mentioned how beneficiaries would be communicating with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and others. The noble Baroness was kind enough to give me preliminary warning. I shall try to assist as she has a point in asking for some definition of the words "temporarily absent" in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) in Article 2, which amends Article 4 of the principal scheme.
I understand that the reason for the provision of six months in paragraph (b) at the top of page 2 is largely historical. Until 1975, the increases in unemployability benefit, constant attendance allowance and the exceptionally severe disablement allowance all involved absence from the United Kingdom not exceeding six months. If it was any longer, it was at the discretion of the Secretary of State. In 1975 the specific term of six months was taken out of the provision for unemployability supplement which excepted temporary absence and included some other conditions that have not been adopted for this scheme now before us because of the age of the beneficiary and the fact that we understand that none of the 11 is likely to go abroad.
The definition of the word "temporarily" that appears in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) is, I am afraid, not contained in the scheme. I understand that it is for the independent adjudicators to decide each individual case. There are only 11. If the noble Baroness is suggesting that all 11 beneficiaries should report tonight at various airports in the United Kingdom, that would indeed be a great tribute to her persistence and the news travelling from your Lordships' House.
I would stress to the noble Baroness that it is up to the two independent adjudicators to decide on what is "temporary" absence from the United Kingdom. The noble Baroness raised the point about when the beneficiary might change his or her mind when abroad. We do not necessarily take the extreme example of Australia. While the absence abroad of the beneficiary is expected to be temporary, the adjudicators may well decide that the conditions for benefit remain satisfied upon the claimant's statement before he—I am not too sure whether any of these 11 are ladies, but let us assume that they are all gentlemen—leaves the United Kingdom.
I hope that I have gone some way, if not all the way, in attempting to answer the question of the noble Baroness. Nevertheless, I would thank the noble Baroness and, indeed, all of your Lordships for listening with such care while I have attempted to deal with this extremely difficult order this evening. I believe that your Lordships will agree that we have said enough and for that reason I beg to move.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Social Security (Contributions) Amendment (No. 3) Regulations 1983
5.41 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Social Security (Contributions) Amendment

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(No. 3) Regulations 1983, which were laid before your Lordships on 25th February, be approved. These regulations will remove the greater part of an unnecessary irritation which present provisions cause the so-called "opted out" women—those married women and widows who retain the right to pay national insurance contributions at the reduced rate.
At present, if an employer wrongly deducts full-rate contributions for them, these women are not able to say that they would like to give up their right to pay the lower rate and let these contributions stand, so counting towards their contributory benefit rights. Payment of the lower rate contribution gives no benefit rights, apart from industrial injuries cover and, from April this year, inclusion in the statutory sick pay scheme. So a woman who has wrongly paid at the full rate can only be offered her money back by my department and, if she wants, give up her right to pay the lower rate only from the start of the next tax year.
It will be apparent that this is something of a nonsense of a provision. In essence, we have to force money back on women who actively wanted it to remain in the National Insurance Fund and begin to build up benefit rights for them. Nor, under existing provisions, are we able to allow these women to give up their right to pay the lower rate—revoking their election, as it is called—in the middle of a tax year. They have to wait till the start of the next one.
What these regulations aim to do is to put the situation right. Any woman who has wrongly paid full-rate contributions at the not-contracted-out rate will be able to let them stand, so revoking her election retrospectively and enabling the contributions to count towards her benefit. And because it is only fair to let these women make their decision in the light of a reasoned calculation about their benefit expectations, we shall give them until the end of December in the year following the end of the tax year in which the contributions were paid to make their decision.
Your Lordships will see that there are certain exceptions in the new regulations. Most of these are to stop administrative complications. For example, if a woman has already obtained a refund of contributions or has subsequently paid a contribution at the reduced rate, it would obviously not be right to let her full-rate contributions stand. But the most important exception, to which I would draw your Lordships' attention, concerns women who have a period in contracted-out employment. They will be excluded from the retrospective provisions, and for a very good reason. If they were allowed to revoke their election retrospectively, their doing so would impose a liability, however small, on their employers in respect of the guaranteed minimum pension that is the counterpart for people who are contracted-out of the additional component in the state scheme. Even if the employer accepted this obligation willingly, there is no way that it would be imposed within subordinate legislation. The simple fact is that no subordinate legislation of this kind can create a retrospective liability.
The remaining major provision of these new regulations is to enable women with the right to pay reduced rate contributions to give up that right during a tax year and start to pay at the full rate from the date
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of their choice. Again, this is a sensible concession which will enable us to meet the wishes of the women concerned, instead of insisting that any change of status must be made from the start of a new tax year.
As I said at the beginning, these changes are wholly beneficial. They go as far as they can in helping opted out women to choose what contributions they want to pay and when, and mark a real step forward in our efforts to meet contributors' wishes. They will also, incidentally, enable a modest staff saving to be made in my department. I cannot believe, therefore, that these changes will be other than welcome, and I commend them to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations 1983 laid before the House on 28th February be approved.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
Baroness Jeger: My Lords, I welcome, as I am sure we all do, what the noble Lord the Minister has said. I am sure the Minister will be glad to hear that I do not propose to go into any of the details. The whole question of the insurance situation of married women and widows is a very large problem and it is not to be dealt with in regulations which are coming before us tonight. I know that many women's organisations and I hope many members of Her Majesty's Government are giving great thought to the fundamental problems involved in the insurance position of married women and widows. We welcome these small improvements tonight and hope that your Lordships will agree to them.
Lord Banks: My Lords, all that I want to do is to thank the noble Lord for his very clear explanation of the contents of this order and to welcome the removal of "an irritation", as he said, which has been caused to married women and widows.
Lord Kilmarnock: My Lords, we on this Bench would also like to thank the noble Lord the Minister for his explanation. I would also like to pay him a compliment. I found his explanation a great deal clearer and easier to understand than the Explanatory Note which accompanies the draft order. I hope that he will perhaps make his communication skills available to his department in their communication with the general public at large. He mentioned a staff saving in his department. I hope he will be able to give me an undertaking that the staff saving will not be made in that section of the department which is concerned with producing readable leaflets for the department's clients.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am grateful—indeed, flattered—by the reception of the order that I have moved tonight. I will certainly see whether I can give the assurance for which the noble Lord has asked. I am not quite certain of our plans with regard to that particular department and, therefore, for me to give a categoric assurance now might be unwise. However, I shall with pleasure look into the matter.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

London Docklands Development Corporation (Vesting of Land) (Greater London Council and Southwark London Borough Council) Order 1982
5.48 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale Lord Skelmersdale rose to move, That the order laid before the House on 17th January 1982 be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the complication of the title of this draft order, I hope that I may be allowed to move the Motion standing in my name upon the Order Paper. This order is made under Section 141 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980, and effects the transfer of approximately 132 acres of land, known as the Southwark Site, from its present owners—the Greater london Council and Southwark London Borough Council—to the London Docklands Development Corporation.
The Southwark Site was to have been released by the authorities for a major development proposal by Lysander Estates Ltd. Because the local authorities have withdrawn from negotiations with Lysander, that scheme cannot now proceed. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the environment therefore, on 23rd December last, made this order vesting ownership of the site in the London Docklands Development Corporation.
The order was laid before the House on 17th January and it was declared hybrid and was open to be petitioned against for a period of 14 days. Four petitions were received against the order: one from each of the joint owners; one from the Southwark Trades Council; one from the Southwark Docklands Campaign and a number of local tenants associations.
The Greater London Council opposed the order arguing that the site had been the subject of a major private sector development proposal, the details of which had been negotiated between Lysander and the owners. The owners had now withdrawn from those negotiations, and wished to pursue the contingency plan which had been prepared against this eventuality by the borough council. The GLC argued that they were accordingly better placed to secure early development of the site than were the LDDC.
In their petition the GLC also argued that if the order were approved, it would leave in the council's ownership small areas of land which would be severed from the Southwark Site, and that the order incorporated other areas of land which the council required for the construction of the A200 Lower Road improvement scheme. The borough council in their petition similarly argued that, following the withdrawal from negotiations with Lysander, they were best placed to secure early development by implementing their contingency plan which provided for public housing, open space and industrial development.
The Southwark Trades Council argued that the Lysander scheme had always been unsuitable for this site, and that what was needed was industry and public housing related to local needs, which the trades council believed could be provided by the local authorities. The trades council supported the contingency plan prepared by the borough council and
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further argued that to vest the site in the LDDC would pre-empt the borough's local plan for the North Southwark area. The council also contended that the corporation's performance in the Southwark area could not justify the Secretary of State's belief that the LDDC would secure early development of the site.
The collective petition of the Southwark Docklands Campaign and local tenants associations argued that the Southwark Site should be developed for the benefit of local people and not on the lines of the Lysander proposal. Concern was also expressed that, if vested, the opportunity would be lost for the provision of further public housing, community facilities and industrial development which was related to the needs of people in the borough.
The order and petitions were referred to the Hybrid Instruments Committee of your Lordships' House. They considered whether any substantial ground of complaint was made which merited an inquiry by Select Committee. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State, in his representations to the Hybrid Instruments Committee, pointed out that the development of this site had been one of the matters aired before the previous Select Committee which had considered the designation and constitution order establishing the corporation in the first place and defining the Urban Development Area.
He explained that at the time of those proceedings there was no proposal to vest the site as negotiations were continuing between the local authorities and Lysander, and it appeared that a satisfactory scheme would be agreed and would proceed without delay. However, counsel for the Secretary of State in summing up the Government's case stressed that if this development did not proceed, Southwark's chances of finding another developer must be doubtful. In that case the LDDC would be better placed to secure an alternative development for the site.
In their report the Select Committee agreed that that view was the right one. They also stressed that a change of approach was required in the docklands area, and that the need was to attract private investment. They concluded that the LDDC was more likely to attract that investment than were the local authorities. My right honourable friend explained to the Hybrid Instruments Committee that since the petitions were deposited, assurances had been given to the GLC that in those cases where severance of land may be caused by the vesting order, then the LDDC would purchase that land. The GLC have also been assured that land required for the construction of the A200 Lower Road improvement scheme will be dedicated for highway purposes.
He also explained to the committee that the contingency plan prepared by the local authorities would rely heavily on direct public investment in the provision of services and public housing. The authorities recognised this. My right honourable friend explained that there could be no reasonable expectation that such resources would be available, and in those circumstances it must be doubted that the plan could be implemented. He also referred to the concerns expressed by several of the petitioners regarding the provision of public sector housing in the North Southwark area. He told the committee about the

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agreement which the corporation had made with Southwark for the provision of improved accommodation, including 550 new dwellings, for many of the borough's tenants in the North Southwark area.
My right honourable friend concluded that the matters referred to in the petitions had been so fully canvassed in the proceedings on the designation order that, having regard to the circumstances in which vesting was now proposed, the petitions disclosed no substantial ground of complaint on any new matter.
As I have said, the petitions, together with my right honourable friend's representations, were considered by the Hybrid Instruments Committee of your Lordships' House. I am sure the House would wish to agree with me in recording our gratitude to those noble Lords who sat on that committee for the careful consideration that they gave to the many points raised by petitioners. In that consideration the committee took the view that none of the points raised was of such substance as to require investigation by a Select Committee. Therefore, I beg to move.
Moved, That the London Docklands Development Corporation (Vesting of Land) (Greater London Council and Southwark London Borough Council) Order 1982, laid before the House on 17th January 1982 be approved.—(Lord Skelmersdale.)
5.55 p.m.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord for having outlined the matter before the House. He may recall that on previous occasions when I have spoken to these orders of the London Docklands Development Corporation and, indeed, to the Merseyside orders, I have expressed some concern that the methods of ensuring progress should be such as to get the full support of the local community as well as adequate resources to carry out the job. This debate is really about the needs of the people of this area of dockland and how they can best be accommodated. Of course, their needs are a rejuvenated area, brought to life with essential amenities, and they include the development of industrial sites in order to bring work and jobs. The needs include housing development by the public authority for those in the greatest need, taken as a social service and not merely as a profitable venture. Of course, there is the need to develop leisure and other amenities.
On the question of how that task can best be carried out, I think that we should bear in mind the need for local people to feel that they have a part to play in order that the experience and the unique interests and skills of local people can be matched to the task. To get local involvement from the start is the best way to get people working together for the common good. We believe that the task cannot and ought not to be attempted by imposing a régime from the top. We know that in some parts of the country development corporations have been set up which, of course, include the LDDC and, as I said earlier, the Merseyside Corporation, and so on. They have a special task to perform and have needed the powers and sometimes the resources which the Government have given them. However, unlike local authorities, they are not run by elected people answerable to the community which they seek to serve. They cannot be
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as responsive; they cannot have the unique experience of locally-elected representatives who have to meet, to listen to and, indeed, to react to local opinion. They are answerable to no one except the Secretary of State, who of course has many other things to do, and who is remote from the situation.
The land in question is valuable, especially for developers. Of course, private developers are not only concerned about the purpose of development; they are concerned even more about making profits. One does not criticise that, but it is not the main point. They look for a good financial return on their investment. In some situations that is commendable, but in this case it is not a matter of having to accept such a proposition in order to get development going and the needs of the people met. There is another alternative, a better one, which has not had a full hearing in the debate taking place.
The development of an area is not only a matter of providing development in the sense of building industrial buildings and factories or of building houses. There is the need for utilities, roads, public services and amenity services as well, aspects which are not always profitable in the financial sense. In this area we are concerned with providing a social service for the people who live there and, indeed, for those who might be invited to come in and rejuvenate the run-down area.
On the matter of the resources being available, to which the noble Lord referred, the infrastructure is already in the state of provision. I understand that, contrary to the view that has been expressed to justify the development role of the LDDC, as a quicker way of getting things moving the London Borough of Southwark has moved with quite remarkable speed substantially to develop the infrastructure for the Southwark Site and for the surrounding area of the Surrey Docks. Further work is due to start this month on the final clearance of the site and the demolition of warehouses, and so there has been a considerable amount of work undertaken already.
The present owners of the 130-acre site, to which the noble Lord made reference, are the Southwark Borough Council and, of course, the Greater London Council. This land was acquired after the closing of the Surrey Docks in 1969 from the Port of London Authority, and is therefore already in public ownership. There have been several attempts at development, and Lysander Estates Limited, to which the noble Lord made reference, agreed in April 1981 to build major shopping, industrial and office development, but this has not been proceeded with after even protracted negotiations, so that really is not an alternative.
Failing progress for private development the two local authorities, Southwark and the GLC, have been going ahead with an alternative plan. Those authorities and others have petitioned against the vesting order, and the matter has been looked at by the Hybrid Instruments Select Committee, who say that the petitions do not warrant further investigation by a Select Committee. Therefore, the debates in the other place and in this House are the only means by which the two authorities, and indeed other petitioners, can have their views aired, and they are very concerned

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that they will not get a chance of putting their point of view as people concerned with that immediate area.
Trammell Crow, the original potential developers, dropped out in 1976 for financial reasons. As Lysander have not proceeded as private developers in view of the problems likely to be faced by any private developers, what makes the Government think that trying private development through the LDDC will be a better, more desirable alternative, and will make greater progress? The noble Lord should say how they anticipate getting public support for their plans through the LDDC, and how they will consult those in the area who they exist to serve.
There has been no immediate rush for alternative private development. The potential negotiations to which I have made reference have fallen down. The LDDC and, indeed, the Government should learn a lesson from local authority experience with Lysander, for Lysander wanted quite drastic changes in several important aspects, including a reduction in the premium and licence fee they should pay the councils for development, changes in rent reviews, changes in leases, changes in plans and changes in arbitration and other procedures and powers, which would not have been in the best interests of the local area. It was reasonable that in the circumstances the local councils should want to get ahead with the development themselves, and of course they already have the powers to do so. Why not allow them to get on with the job? They have the powers; they have the resources; and, most importantly, they have local authority representation and accountability to the public, which of course the LDDC does not have.
They do not want a repeat of the Lysander experience, where, after protracted negotiations, the potential developer wanted a review of the proposals which would have meant a much poorer financial settlement for the authorities as well as loss of control over development of the land and resources. If one looks at the list of complaints of the local authorities in relation to the Lysander situation, one can understand their concern. It is not a case that Lysander wanted revisions because of delays in the road programme for the adjoining area. The point I want to make there is that there has already been a fair amount of work by the Southwark Council in the area of the Surrey Docks. There have been site preparation works, new sewers, gas services, the removal of silt and dock repairs. Then there are the community facilities: landscaping, grants for local community organisations, improvements and so forth; housing, 281 new family homes with gardens; industry, 10 new factory units and the reconstruction of approach roads to the area, the construction of a new distributor road, the Salter Road; and, finally, open space and environmental improvements. Altogether the amount expended runs into about £34 million. This represents a realistic and viable plan, and the implementation has already begun with the considerable investment to which I have made reference.
There is the councils' plan, agreed in consultation with the local people through locally elected representatives, and plans for the creation of 2,000 jobs by industrial development, with the GLC Enterprise Board contributing to the major investment; and housing, with over 700 dwellings with local authority
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houses, gardens and amenities at rents people can afford. We shall be told that there are already many such houses publicly owned in the area. Surely what matters is not who owns the houses but whether those most in need of them in the area can afford to have them, or whether some will be able to jump the queue with money.
If the Government say that they are proud of the fact that they are giving local authorities with housing the chance to sell their houses, then surely the best way here is to have rented accommodation. If it is true, of course, that those who want to buy can purchase, then the Government have already provided the means for them to do so. If the houses built are only to be sold, then this means that local people who have not the means to buy a house but who would like to live and to work in the area are deprived of that essential right.
The council has made considerable progress with dock filling and with the consolidation of the dock basins, running to over £3½ million in the Surrey Docks site. A lot of work has been done by the local authority. The local authority is only asking to have the opportunity to carry that development on instead of having it taken away by the LDDC and developed with different prospectives in mind.
Finally, I want to put a few questions to the Minister. Will he accept that the main reasons for creating the LDDC is to enable it to use powers and resources not available to other authorities? Will he accept that where other authorities have such powers, and have such resources, it is much more preferable for them to use them because they have the major advantage which the development corporations do not have, and that is that they have local people to whom they are responsible working with them?
Would the noble Lord accept the view I have expressed on previous orders that it is far better to have local authorities running these projects when they have the power to do so, because they can consult with local people? They have not only the members but also the officers in their local departments who have experience of the local situation, and this is a great advantage. I wonder why, in this particular order, the matter was not pursued by a Select Committee hearing evidence from the local authorities and from the many other organisations who were concerned?
Will the Minister come back to Parliament, as being the only forum that the Government have used for this order, to report on the proposals which the LDDC may consider necessary later? Because if there are no other means of consulting local opinion via the locally elected representatives, the councillors, then the only way is to get the views of the elected Members of Parliament. Having been elected to power, as the Government have, with the slogan that the Government of the day do not always know best and that there should be decentralisation of power from Whitehall to local authorities, will the Government stop taking power to themselves continually and stop appointing people through the Secretary of State instead of using locally elected representatives?
The House has a right to know the answers to some of these questions. The Government must be brought to realise that power should be used as a means to an end and not as an end in itself; and it is best used when

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exercised by people for people. Surely that is the best way to progress with harmony, which is necessary for future progress. I believe that the Southwark Borough Council and the GLC plan is the best for progress in the situation we are discussing, and that there really is no case for this order to be pursued. I hope that the Minister will recognise the genuine concern of so many people of all sorts, and will provide some of the assurances we seek.
6.10 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, spent almost the whole of his speech on the subject of the LDDC, whereas what the order is about—and what I understood the debate would be about—it is whether the LDDC is an appropriate organisation to develop this site.
Lord Bishopston: That is what I am asking, my Lords.
Lord Skelmersdale: I shall come to that shortly, my Lords. To be fair, I should add that later in his speech the noble Lord made that point.
The docklands corporation was established under the Local Government (Planning and Land) Act 1980 and was charged with the task of the regeneration of its area. That was two and a half years ago, and up to that time I remember well going to docklands and seeing the absolute devastation that had been built up over the years since the war. The corporation's task was to be achieved particularly by bringing land and buildings into use and by encouraging the development of existing and new industry and commerce, so creating an attractive environment and ensuring that housing and social facilities would be available to encourage people to live and work in the area.
Southwark is the local council, as the noble Lord rightly pointed out, but what I cannot see when I look at the District Auditor's report is why he should say that the council is willing and able to develop the site. The District Auditor recently reported that Southwark has about 120 acres of vacant land, excluding this site. Moreover, Southwark is top of the league of London boroughs for empty properties, having 4,500 in its area. It is also top of the league with hard to let properties, with about 14,000 of them. It is a long-standing concern of the Government, as the House knows, that housing authorities should concentrate on improving their present housing stock before increasing it.
The corporation is firmly committed to the regeneration of this part of docklands. For this to take place, the site must first be cleared of contaminated silt, levelled, consolidated and generally prepared for development. The LDDC is already funding the completion of a distributor road in the Surrey Docks area at a cost of approximately £1 ½ million, and these works will cost a further £1 million. The corporation would have commenced a full survey of the site to identify the extent of the site clearance necessary, but an application to the local authorities for permission to enter the site was refused.
The LDDC has commissioned two leading firms of planning consultants and chartered surveyors who are
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advising on development options for the site. This will ensure that the site's development potential is realised as quickly as possible, utilising the private investment which was clearly identified by the Select Committee as being necessary for the regeneration of the area.
The noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, almost went so far as to charge the Government with a little impropriety over seeking to make this vesting order. It is true that the Government are opposed to the contingency plan about which we have been talking; the plan relies heavily on public resources which simply are not available. There is a great shortage of private sector housing in docklands generally. In this immediate area, only 2 per cent. is owner-occupied. There was no derelict land grant which could be given to Southwark Council for this site because to qualify for the supplementary programme for 1982–83, schemes must have been completed or substantially completed by 1st March 1983. It was obvious from Southwark's application that only a small proportion of the expenditure would have been incurred in this financial year, so my department was unable to approve the grant. There is also very little prospect that sums of this magnitude will be available in 1983–84 for schemes of this type.
The noble Lord then said—I think I heard him correctly—that it was better for local authorities to run projects of this sort. I hope I have shown the House that that is not so, and that is exactly why the LDDC was set up two and a half years ago—because that simply did not happen. He then spoke about the need for local involvement. The LDDC consults widely on development proposals. Borough officers are seconded to the LDDC for their local knowledge. The 1980 Act requires members of the board to be appointed who have local knowledge. Therefore I most certainly rebut the charge that the development corporation is lacking in local knowledge and does not do its job of finding out what the local people really want.
Lord Bishopston: My Lords, will the Minister accept that having local knowledge is not good enough? After all, what we are talking about is accountability. If there are locally elected representatives who are in touch with and answerable to the people, that is more democratic than appointing members to the LDDC and trying to get them to work in an environment which is not always harmonious. Regarding the vacant properties of which the noble Lord spoke, it obviously follows that while local authorities are going ahead with improvements to houses and other buildings in their areas, those properties will be vacant. It is authorities which do not do much which can boast that they have few vacant properties, although they have people living in substandard conditions.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I shall obviously have to go to docklands—
Lord Bishopston: The Minister certainly shall.
Lord Skelmersdale:—and take the noble Lord with me.
Lord Bishopston: I have been there.
Lord George-Brown: May I come too?
Lord Skelmersdale: Of the housing to which I was referring, my Lords, I should be very surprised indeed to find that the reason why most were empty was that they were being redeveloped, improved or whatever; rather, I think we should find they were empty because people were not prepared to live in them, or they were unsafe to live in, and they were not being improved. However, as I said, I shall take the point the noble Lord made firmly on board and go and look for myself.
As for accountability, my feeling is that it cannot always be measured in terms of direct application to people. That may sound a rather strange thing to say; I am really saying that what should happen is what is best for the site, for the local population and for those people who are not yet in the local population but who will, we hope—and the LDDC is determined it should happen—go into the area to live. It is also important that there should be a mix of housing and industrial and commercial property, on both the public and private sides; and that is what the LDDC intends to develop in the areas vested in it.
As for resources, the powers and resources are provided by Parliament. The Select Committee considered this point and agreed that the docklands corporation should be set up. That committee recognised that these powers were necessary. I should add, on the subject of housing, that the development corporation is emphatically not a housing authority.
6.20 p.m.
Lord George-Brown: My Lords, may I throw myself on the mercy of the House. Other business—committee business—in the House kept me from coming into this debate as early as I should have liked. Perhaps the House will be courteous enough to listen to me for a minute or two. It just happens that I am a Southwark boy; it just happens that Bob Mellish, who is the deputy chairman of the LDDC, is a Surrey Docks, Bermondsey, boy. Between us we have knowledge of what has happened, of what is needed, which (with the greatest respect to the noble Lords, Lord Bishopston and Lord Skelmersdale) is not naturally available to them; although, obviously, it can be acquired.
There are two points that I want to make very briefly, since I do not want to trespass on the courtesy of the House. The Southwark Council has not shown any very great interest in the regeneration of the area and neither have the other local authorities in the area covered by the docklands corporation, an area which, of course, is wider than just the Surrey Docks and Southwark Council. There is, and has been for ages, tremendous conflict between Tower Hamlets, Southwark and the other local authorities who have got in each other's way; and, as the Minister has said, there has been for a very long time a total run down of our area which has much distressed us.
May I say to my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, that it is not necessarily true that by giving the authority to a local authority—and they are interested in many other things; there are many political ideologies opeating within that authority; and
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I can tell him that there have been many political conflicts in that area—because they are a democratically "elected" authority; that you therefore get more dynamism or more action. In fact you get, and we have got, less.
Had I still been a Labour Minister, and especially had I still been the Minister for Economic Affairs, I think that I would have taken this as one of the classic cases for appointing an authority which includes local representatives, local people, but also with people with business and other experience to do a job which local bureaucracy simply cannot do. Whether houses are publicly-owned, privately-owned, rented or self-owned is, in a way, interesting; but it is also, in a way, incidental.
What is necessary in the Surrey Docks area, and necessary in the whole river basin area right down to Limehouse Reach, is some concentration on introducing industry and commerce so that people have a reason for going there. All that has happened up till now has been (to use a horrid word) the "gentrification" of certain parts of it where people—let us face it! Socialists as well as others—have bought houses in those limited gentrified areas. But the place has gone on decaying as an industrial and commercial area.
The docklands corporation is in consonance with Labour Party views. When I was in the party, we had invisaged such authorities. The chairman of this one is (if you like) a capitalist. I do not know whether or not he is a Tory. I have not asked him. I know him. But he is a dynamic personality who gets things done; and he has a social conscience. The deputy chairman is one of us, one who knows the area inside out and cares deeply for it. There are members on it who know the authority. They are getting on with the job. They are more likely to attract commerce and industry to it than are the Southwark Council or any other councils in the area. I think that it is an exciting idea. I think that it is much more likely to work if we encourage it to work and give it resources and backing. Knowing the area so well—I do not live there any more but a large part of my family does so—I have to tell the House that something is happening; something is stirring in dockland. And that has not happened under the Southwark Council, the Tower Hamlets Council or under any of the local authorities, for quite a long time.
I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, has a very well prepared brief from the Southwark Council; but I must tell him that the officers of the local authorities are delighted, quite thrilled, by the fact that somebody is getting on with the job. I do not want to put anybody's job at risk; the Southwark Council is a pretty vicious authority; the public members do not hesitate very much about disciplining people with whom they do not agree; but I can assure him from personal knowledge that the officers are thrilled that somebody is getting on with the job, is consulting them, listening to them and putting their ideas into practice. There is really no party point in this.
I simply suggest to my colleagues—at any rate, to those who were once my colleagues; and some of them still are—do not get in the way! This is a public corporation; it is a publicly responsible corporation.

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That was never out of favour with us. At the end it is accountable. It is more accountable than either the Southwark Council or the GLC in point of fact. I should like to suggest to my colleagues in my ex-party: do not get in the way here. Something is happening, something is moving, in a deprived area, a deprived area to which I belong, in which I was born; to which Bob Mellish belongs and in which he was born. Something is moving; let us help it move.
The fact that the councillors of Southwark feel slightly put out—or, to be more exact one or two rather (if I may say so) odd leaders of Southwark Council are put out—is neither here nor there. Let the work of regeneration go on. Let us get commercial interests into the area. Then people will want to live there, then the local authorities, if they want to do their housing job, can do their housing job. As the Minister has said, the docklands corporation is not a housing authority. The housing authorities can do their job. The important thing is to regenerate the area and I believe that the docklands corporation will do it. I know that none of the local authorities has done it. I thank the House for its courtesy.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Sound Broadcasting: First Report from the Select Committee, "Yesterday in Parliament"
6.30 p.m.
Lord Ferrier Lord Ferrier rose to move, That this House takes note of the First Report from the Select Committee on Sound Broadcasting, Yesterday in Parliament.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that the House takes note of the First Report of the Select Committee on Sound Broadcasting. I feel that as I must be critical of certain aspects of the operation of the BBC, I ought to declare that I have a profound respect for the way the corporation addresses itself to most of its manifold tasks and I especially single out the overseas services. There are exceptions, of course, but my respect is indeed the very reason for my criticism as to the manner in which the Corporation sometimes fails.
The Select Committee were instructed by the House to consider whether or not the recent change in the format of the programme Yesterday in Parliament and its inclusion as an item in the Today programme is in conformity with Clause 13(2) of the current licensing agreement. Having taken counsel's opinion (which is set out in the report as your Lordships will have seen) the committee concluded that the BBC are not in breach of the obligations under the clause by virtue of the fact that they produce a programme each evening entitled Today in Parliament, which is broadcast at 11.30 p.m.
Many of the details are set out in the report but I would quote from paragraph 5, which states:
"Nevertheless, the Committee were aware of the strong feelings expressed by Members of the House that the new presentation of Yesterday in Parliament, particularly its considerably shortened length,"—
(14½ minutes instead of 29 minutes)—
"has meant that the House of Lords has received much less coverage in that programme than it used to have in the past."
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My own view is that, as in the present case of Today in Parliament, our proceedings in the House have generally received a very fair crack of the whip. The committee, as your Lordships will have seen from the report, had a meeting with officials of the BBC, a report of which is set out in paragraph 2. The noble Lord the Chairman of Committees was kind enough to encourage me to attend as a spectator, which I did.
I have followed for years, off and on, the BBC's reporting under Clause 13(2) and have always held that same view as counsel and the committee hold; namely, that the BBC's treatment satisfies the obligation under the clause. However, I have held this view reluctantly, feeling that though the corporation has indubitably complied with the letter of the clause, they have always failed to comply with the spirit of it. Why, my Lords? Because 11.30 p.m. and 8.30 a.m. are unsuitable times for the bulk of potential listeners. There are of course complications, as was brought out in the record of the meeting, but these do not alter the fact that most people are abed by 11.30 p.m. or at work by 8.30 a.m.
In July 1946, the White Paper on Broadcasting Policy contained the following words:
"Daily reports are already being given in the Corporation's programme, in addition to weekly talks by Members [of Parliament] and the Government have now laid upon the Corporation an obligation to broadcast an adequate and impartial daily account by professional reporters of the proceedings in both Houses of Parliament."
I emphasise the word "adequate" because it did not appear in the Licence Agreement dated November 1946. The clause in that licence, which was then Clause 4(2), is identical with the present Clause 13(2) of the current licence and is the one to which I have referred.
Perhaps some of your Lordships may recall what happened before the war. I do not myself, because I was working overseas between the wars. However, I recall a long meeting that I had with the late Lord Reith in 1966 and I remember him saying that he had instituted some such link with Parliament from the earliest days of radio. I would link that with what I have quoted from the White Paper, namely, that daily reports were already being given. That was in 1946, and Lord Reith said that it was one of his principles when he first established the BBC.
The system which had been established after the war, in 1946, continued for many years. There have, of course, been minor changes linked with technical advances such as the recording of speeches, which are set out in the report. But the change in the format of the morning programme last autumn was an important departure and has given rise to this debate. The reduction of some 14 minutes in the programme introduces a new problem. If what took 30 minutes on the previous night is reduced to 14½, what is being cut out and why? Is there any trace of censorship? I do not think there is, but nevertheless something has got to be cut out. What generally happens is that a whole item which was covered overnight may not appear again, and no amount of predigestion by "political correspondents"—and I put the words in inverted commas because that is the phrase used in the current Today programme as the creators of this predigested matter which is given in Today at about 8.35 a.m.

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—can make up for that. I should like to quote the 21st and 22nd March as forming a typical example. Adequate overnight coverage of the Transport Bill was followed in the morning by no mention of the fact that the House of Lords had sat at all.
And what about the other word which is still in the clause; the word "impartial"? Was it impartial, again for "a political correspondent", to say on the 17th March, regarding the previous day's trade union debate which had been well reported overnight:
"Actually whatever the ostensible reasons for this reform, the real political nub is that the Government want to loosen the connections between the unions and the Labour Party by, for example, instituting new procedures by which union members have to contract into, that is agree to, paying the political levy, rather than as now having to make a positive political decision to contract out"?
That is part of the predigested version made by "a political correspondent".
My Lords, what about this morning when, in reporting the debate in another place about Mr. MacGregor, came the words "Then came the tricky bit"? That was the £1½, million. But it was not what was said in the other place. However, I had better say nothing about the other place, although I welcomed—as I think other noble Lords have done—the letters from my right honourable friend the Member for Chelmsford, which have been published in The Times. Indeed, it remains to be seen how the other place addresses itself to this problem for their reaction is of paramount importance.
I may say that my heart goes out to the skilled team who prepare the excellent programme, Today in Parliament, which used to be the basis for Yesterday in Parliament the next morning, and was, therefore, in those days, heard by some 3 million or more listeners, instead of by only 100,000 to 150,000, as is the case today. That team are the true "professional reporters" who are referred to in the clause.
I confess that I am taking more of your Lordships' time than I had intended, because the corporation indicated, in paragraph 29 on pages 14 and 15 of the report, that they await "the response of Members of both Houses", and the pages of Hansard seem to me the best place to record our feelings. I therefore welcome the forthcoming debate and the speeches of noble Lords who have been kind enough to put down their names.
In conclusion, I sincerely hope that the corporation really take the trouble necessary to analyse the situation properly, not merely "counting the heads" but thinking of the serious listeners who want to know what is going on in Parliament, untrammelled by saxophonic fanfares and the other horrible noise which the programme makes—is it a xylophone?—in the morning. I sometimes think—but I shall not develop the subject—that, in respect of this programme, the BBC are engrossed or obsessed by the demand for ratings. Surely, ratings do not apply in a matter like this when competition does not exist, or should not do so.
I could go on, but I will not. For instance, I could remind the corporation that they might try to do some more about informing Scotland and the jungle north of Watford. Also, titles, such as The Week in Westminster and Inside Parliament, are sometimes
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downright misleading. Finally, may I repeat what the 1946 White Paper said:
"The Government attach great importance to the part which broadcasting can play in keeping the public informed of parliamentary proceedings".
That goes for me, also. Our thanks go to the Select Committee and I look forward to the rest of the debate, and to the debate which will, I assume, follow the new format which will emerge from this unfortunate experiment. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the First Report from the Select Committee on Sound Broadcasting, Yesterday in Parliament—(Lord Ferrier.)
6.43 p.m.
Lord Aberdare: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, for having put down this Motion this evening, drawing attention to the First Report by the Select Committee on Sound Broadcasting. I am quite sure, too, that my fellow members of my committee will be delighted to have this opportunity of putting the views of the committee to the House. The noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, has for many years been a most active watchdog on the broadcasting of the affairs of this House, and we are all greatly in his debt for what he has done. He modestly said that he was a spectator at our committee meeting. He certainly took a much more active part than that and he, in fact, gave evidence to the committee. As your Lordships will see in the report of the committee, we say that we
"share Lord Ferrier's view that the broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings is vital to the health of parliamentary democracy",
As the noble Lord has said, the committee were instructed by the House to consider whether or not the recent changes in the format of Yesterday in Parliament, and its inclusion as an item in the Today programme, is in conformity with Clause 13(2) of the Licence and Agreement of the BBC. We had a very clear and concise opinion from my counsel, Mr. Derek Rippengal—we have come to expect this sort of admirable report from him—and he came to a very definite conclusion with which the committee concurred. He said, if I may quote from the report,
"I conclude that the 'Today in Parliament' programme"—
that is, the programme that goes out at 11.30 in the evening—
"satisfies the obligation to broadcast a day by day account of proceedings in Parliament contained in Clause 13(2). It follows that there is, in my view, no obligation to broadcast a 'Yesterday in Parliament' programme at all. That does not dispose of the question whether if such a programme is broadcast it must comply with the requirements of Clause 13(2). In my opinion, however, there is no obligation for it to do so".
That opinion was accepted by the committee and is now reported to the House.
But we certainly did not leave the matter there. We went on to discuss with the representatives of the BBC the various complaints that had reached our ears about the new format of Yesterday in Parliament. We explained to them that we had no general complaints about the Today in Parliament programme. In fact, if anything, we were very much in favour of it; we welcomed it. We certainly get a great deal more coverage from that programme than we get in the

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press, and we left them in no doubt on that fact. It followed from that that we had very little general criticism of Yesterday in Parliament in its previous form, because, in fact, it was a repeat of the Today in Parliament programme, except that five minutes were lopped off the end. If we had any complaint, it was that those five minutes usually came from the report on your Lordships' proceedings. But, in general, we welcomed that programme, too.
What has caused so much criticism is the fact that, since this new experiment was started, a much reduced programme in length—only some 14½ minutes—has been broadcast, that it has appeared as part of the Today programme and that political commentators have been substituted for reporters. This point was made very forcefully by the committee to the members of the BBC who came to see us. I believe that they were a very distinguished number of people, very high up in the BBC, and we should have regard to the reasons that they gave for this new format.
I know that there are those—I am sure not here tonight—who see a sinister motive behind every action of the BBC. I am not one of those. I spent several years happily working as an employee of the corporation. But recently, also, I have come into contact with them, both over the Nationwide programme and, more recently, over the projected series on Parliament and the Palace of Westminster, and I found all the officials that I have dealt with most co-operative and most responsible.
What did they say about the reasons for the new format? I would quote Mr. Francis, who is the managing director of BBC Radio. He said:
"it is not simply a question of putting things on the air, it is a question of attracting listeners".
He went on to explain that in the previous form, when Yesterday in Parliament was broadcast, there would be a considerable drop in audience figures. The Today programme, which used to precede it, was listened to by something like one in seven of all those people who were listening to radio at that time. As soon as Yesterday in Parliament came on the air, that figure dropped to one in eleven. This problem, they pointed out, would have been accentuated at the present moment by the competition that would have come from breakfast television.
If I may again quote Mr. Francis:
"If we put the matter of Parliament before a diminishing audience and one which is switching off, we may not be fulfilling the other element of our responsibility, which is to entertain the public and interest the public and illuminate the public's understanding of Parliament. That is the dilemma we face".
It was to counteract this fall in audience numbers that the BBC decided to try out this new format. To that extent—audience numbers—it has been successful because the Yesterday in Parliament programme now enjoys the one-in-seven audience of the Today programme.
But we left the members of the BBC in no doubt at all that this had been at the expense of coverage of the proceedings in this House. We had quite an array of facts and figures, which we put before them. It was quite clear, as my noble friend Lord Ferrier said, that on several occasions there was no mention of this House at all; on several others, it was less than one
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minute in the 14½-minute programme; in general we received less than 10 per cent. of the programme; and even important debates were ignored. To give them their due, the BBC representatives were sympathetic to our point of view and promised to consider it. Your Lordships will see that in the minutes. In my opinion, since we met them there has been an improvement so far as coverage of the affairs of this House are concerned.
The position is that this experiment, which was for a period of six months, will end at Easter. During the Easter Recess the BBC will be evaluating its success, or lack of success, and they wish to take fully into account the views of Members of both Houses of Parliament. I feel sure that this debate will be most valuable in making known the views of the Members of this House for that review by the BBC.
6.52 p.m.
Lord Ardwick: My Lords, I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, for giving us an opportunity to debate this subject, but I do not go along with him entirely. I do not believe that we should cavil too much about Yesterday in Parliament. The BBC, as we have discovered, is under no obligation to give this second report of our proceedings. They do so because they think it will interest a sufficient number of listeners. We who believe it is important for the nation to know what is going on in Parliament should regard this as a bonus—all the more so because the BBC is not merely performing a pious democratic exercise but is trying to make Parliament of interest to a wider audience of listeners.
The programme Today in Parliament has a small audience, not only because it goes out very late at night but also because, for most people, a straight record of proceedings, even when enlivened by live quotes, is a dead bore. It is enjoyed by those of us who are serious students of politics. It is also enjoyed, of course, by my fellow insomniacs. But it is because Parliament is extremely difficult to report in a way that interests a considerable number of people that the popular newspapers have ceased to report it as a whole. Indeed, they give it hardly any attention at all. The serious newspapers, except for The Times, have cut down their reports. Indeed, all the serious newspapers have developed a facetious parliamentary sketch that may make fools of us all—and not always when we are making fools of ourselves.
In order to attract a wider audience, the BBC are now attempting what I know, as an old hand at the written form of this game, is a very difficult technical feat. Instead of a straight report, a microscopic Hansard, instead of a serious summary, they are attempting a sketch report—at once an explanation and a description of what has gone on, enlivened by the living voice. Moreover, it enables them to put subjects in context. I do not believe we should be afraid of the voice of the political correspondent who explains something to us in the way which the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, has described. We should not be too "touchy" about these matters. I do not believe that there is anybody, outside the ranks of the parties, who would think that either of the remarks which were quoted was anything but objective reality. The new programme is holding a larger number of people

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whose hand would once fly to the "Off" switch the moment they heard the word "Parliament".
A much more difficult problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has suggested, is the balance of the report between the two Houses. Of course the elected House must get the lion's share of the time, but the other place has sometimes got the lot. Some of our important debates, or our brilliant phrases, or our unique perceptions, have been ignored. In moments of blackest despair I sometimes feel that nobody takes this House seriously except we ourselves and those who would abolish this House. But this House, which performs an important legislative function, surely must have a modicum of time devoted to it in anything which purports to be an account of Yesterday in Parliament. Sometimes, as has been pointed out, we have not even had a mention, although never a day passes on which something important is not said and done in this House which may never be available to the mass of people unless it goes out on the BBC.
In their reconsideration of this programme over the Easter Recess I believe that the BBC should beware of another temptation: to give some lively, amusing but trivial passages simply to get away from what had been given the previous night. Ideally, Yesterday in Parliament should surely make the main events of the previous day available in a more widely acceptable form, skating with professional skill around the problem of repetition. That being said, I thought that this morning's effort was wholly admirable and perhaps might be regarded as a model for the way the job should be done.
6.58 p.m.
Earl Cathcart: My Lords, I, too, should like to add my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Ferrier for giving us the opportunity today to debate the First Report from the Select Committee on Sound Broadcasting, of which committee I have the privilege to be a member. The six-month experimental period for the new format of Yesterday in Parliament ends on Wednesday. After the Easter Recess, as noble Lords have heard from the Lord Chairman of Committees, it will be reviewed by the BBC to see what changes must be made for the future. Indeed, as a result of a most interesting meeting of the Select Committee with senior members of the BBC's sound broadcasting staff, which has also been referred to by the Lord Chairman of Committees, they have undertaken not only to review the experiment as a whole but to look at the allocation of broadcasting time between the two Houses. Therefore, the point I am making is that your Lordships' debate today is not only important but extremely timely.
In response to a suggestion that the experiment might represent a radical and deliberate change of policy, the managing director of the BBC agreed that he would prefer to describe it as an adjustment; but I have to say that it is a pretty radical adjustment. The reduction in overall time allotted now to Yesterday in Parliament and the feeling that the BBC's contractual obligations under Clause 13(2) have been totally satisfied by their programme Today in Parliament has led not only to much reduced coverage of the proceedings in your Lordships' House in Yesterday in Parliament, but often that coverage is confined to
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small snippets of newsworthy items rather than the important work which very often goes on.
As an example of what I mean, on 19th January there was an important debate on education, proposed from the Opposition Front Bench, in which 20 speakers took part, and due to other important business that day the House did not rise that evening until a quarter to eleven. Yet the only reference next day in Yesterday in Parliament to your Lordships' proceedings for the 19th January was to a Starred Question which only lasted five minutes.
One must admit that much of our business in Committee stages is unlikely to inflame public interest or to catch the eye of the BBC's radio editor. Nevertheless, it is important work, and if the BBC's account is to be professional and impartial, it deserves a mention to indicate the wide range of work carried out in great detail in your Lordships' House on many Bills. And in particular they should point out—and to my mind it cannot be repeated too often—that since we have no guillotine procedure in this House we need to go through every Bill very thoroughly and in detail.
As the Lord Chairman of Committees said in his opening remarks at the Select Committee, many, if not most, of your Lordships feel that the experimental period represents for this House the worst option. I believe your Lordships will agree that we have no complaint with our representation in Today in Parliament broadcast at 11.30 p.m. in the evening to an audience of about 150,000, whereas we have done much less well in the new experimental Yesterday in Parliament broadcast at about 8.45 a.m. to perhaps very nearly 1 million listeners. I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Ferrier that we need to be criticial of the actual times chosen by the BBC for the broadcasting of these two programmes. Whatever time they were to choose it would be inconvenient to somebody, and in this respect I think the BBC probably knows best. However, in conclusion, I believe this short debate will not only indicate the views of this House to the BBC when they review this experiment after Easter, but show with what close interest we all watch these broadcasts.
7.3 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and I have at least one thing in common, which is that neither of us is a member of the Select Committee on Sound Broadcasting. We therefore bring to these proceedings an eye which is uncommitted to the document we have before us. Nevertheless, I am bound to say that I think that the conclusion, in so far as there is a conclusion, to which the report comes was an inevitable one. It seems to me that, within the present legal requirements, and within the resources which the BBC feels obliged to give to fulfil these requirements, the corporation is doing as much as it can be expected to do. I myself appear occasionally in the night-time proceedings—rarely, but occasionally—but I cannot easily recall an occasion on which the night-time proceedings quotation has been followed by a further quote in the morning. I really make no complaint about that. Within the present context I think my noble friend Lord Ardwick is right in saying that there must obviously and rightly be a priority given to the elected

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Chamber, and within the situation as it is at the present time we cannot expect to do much better than we do.
Our real problem is a rather wider one than this. It seems to me that in our rather meretricious society we are presenting inadvertently a picture of Parliament and its proceedings which, taken all over, is a falsehood. This is because even our newspapers have their own idea of how parliamentary proceedings should be presented, and presentation has now become more important than content. At one time The Times used to do a presentation of Parliament which was very dull indeed but extremely factual; it was rather like a condensed version of Hansard. But now even The Times deems it necessary, following modern fashion, to divide up, to present, to package. Our problem, therefore, is that we are becoming more package and less and less content all the time. The BBC, in its present change, is doing precisely that. It has decided that as far as the content is concerned it is too dull, and therefore it must be packaged and presented in a more palatable form so that it can be consumed by a wider audience in the morning. Therefore, I think it would be wrong to complain to the BBC.
What I think we ought to recognise is the inevitability of this process, because it is the way in which society is moving. There are some of us who, possibly as one of the consequences of growing old, do not like the way society is moving in certain respects, and this causes us to blame the corporation for something which, if we are prepared to accept the responsibility, must really devolve upon us. The fact of the matter is that if we want to arrest these packaging processes we can only do so by placing a legislative compulsion upon the corporation, or upon the broadcasting authorities more widely, perhaps, which will make them resist the way in which modern developments must necessarily drive them.
This raises the question whether there should be an obligation for a continuous programme on activities in parliament. This happens in some countries. In some countries there is a continuous record of what happens in Parliament, and it has a small but, of course, very interested audience. It has the advantage of providing a permanent record which is available to anyone, in the same sense as the permanent record which is taken in this Chamber is available to us. I believe there would be an advantage if it were possible for academic people concerned with politics, and for newspapers and for other people, to have available a cassette which they could use at any time, a recording, for historical reasons. That would be a development which would be of great advantage. The fact that it would attract, except on very special occasions, a rather small audience seems to me to be no argument against it.
My own view is that within the present context the corporation is doing all that could be expected of it. In order for it to do more we should have to require it to do more. We should have to say that there will be, possibly on VHF on a certain wavelength, a continuous record. That need not necessarily be very dull; the record could move from Chamber to Chamber, from committee room to committee room. It could be quite an entertaining programme for those
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who are interested in the subject. There are some people who are interested, and once you become interested in politics you become very interested. So the degree of interest by those who were listening would be very high indeed.
This is one factor which I think we do not measure enough. We are rather inclined to assume—the polls rather lead us into this procedure—that all degrees of interest are the same. Of course, they are not. It is possible to be slightly interested in something or deeply interested in it. The quality of interest in such a programme, although the numbers might be smaller, would be very high indeed.
The conclusion to which I come is that we must not blame the corporation for the fact that we do not require it to do more. Perhaps we ourselves in both Houses should look again at this question to see whether a change could be made whereby the corporation would go on doing what it is doing at present but there would be, as it were, a Hansard of the air which would be available in the same way as the printed Hansard. It would be our duty to create that Hansard of the air. I think it is time Parliament looked at that possibility.
7.11 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, it is interesting to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney. I think I have more in common with him than with even my noble friend Lord Ferrier because not only was I not on the Select Committee but I did not even attend the meeting of it. I think the same applied to the noble Lord. I also find myself very much in agreement with the imaginative ideas that he put forward and I only wish he had limited his address to broadcasting matters instead of referring to some of the things on which we violently disagree.
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Ferrier, as others have done, and also the Select Committee on a very balanced report. On the whole I congratulate the committee on the conclusions that it was forced to reach, but particularly paragraph 9. My excuse for addressing your Lordships is that it fell to me to ask a Question of the Government on this matter on 29th November and much of what I have to say, which I hope will put some new ideas in the mind of the BBC, is in column 1060 of the Hansard for that date. I start by saying that I entirely agree, as others have done, that Today in Parliament—at whatever time—is an admirable programme and I hope that it will remain so. Also, for what it was originally intended to do I think that the Today programme is an excellent programme. However, I did say when asking a supplementary to my Question that I thought that perhaps it had a reputation as much for entertaining as for informing. I do not criticise it for that because I think that Messrs. Timpson and Redhead, and their good colleagues, are excellent at providing a special flavour to the news which makes it more interesting. But that is the news and I think that a parliamentary report, even if it is underpinned by Today in Parliament the night before, especially a parliamentary report with live transmissions of what we are actually saying, is required to provide news about parliamentary affairs rather than snippets of news about Parliament. I think that is where there is perhaps an error, but we have been over this ground before.

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To take the timing point and whether Today in Parliament at 11.30 p.m. is good enough, I wonder what the legal adviser to the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees would have said if the BBC for some unpremeditated reason, instead of doing what they have done, had broadcast Today in Parliament at a respectable time of, say, 9 o'clock when everyone could hear it readily and conveniently, and had broadcast Today in Parliament at that time in the general format that we now have the morning broadcast, and put Yesterday in Parliament in the form that Today in Parliament now is—that is, a proper account of Parliament properly divided between the two Houses—at two o'clock in the morning to be listened to by the insomniacs, a few motorists and a few night workers who could take the time off.
I am making the point seriously. Would the fact that there has been a proper report at some time during the 24 hours have satisfied the legal advisers of the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees? I rather suspect that without warning it might have done, from the sense of what he wrote, but I may be unfair in saying that. But the point is that it is not good enough for the BBC to feel that provided it has a good programme at some time, even if it is extremely late and very few people listen to it, that this would do.
The next point to bring out is the question of professional reporters. One sees, in the answer to Question 7 that the change in team for Yesterday in Parliament was to BBC political correspondents. I suggest that that might be satisfactory to persons in another place but I also suggest that it is not satisfactory to your Lordships. I say that for two good very practical reasons. The first point is that in the answer to Question 7 it was said that these political correspondents met Members of both Houses in their respective press areas. Your Lordships well know that in this House we do not have an effective press area. The question whether we should have and where it should be is another matter altogether on which I do not want to spend time now, but it might be necessary to tackle that later and for a different reason.
But the important point is that your Lordships' contribution—except for the contribution to the routine passage of a Bill through Parliament—is more in influencing Government in the longer term, and possibly even more fundamentally, rather than day-to-day and in the short-term. Hence, the kind of things that we know about and about which we can tell correspondents in regard to affairs and what is going on are understandably of considerably less interest to practically every journalist. That applies to radio journalists just as much as to others. So even if we did have a recognisable press area, because of the nature of our contribution—which in some ways is very fundamental and is not ready to be reported the next day—we still would not get the press people to come and talk to us. I do not know that that can readily be solved.
Therefore, I believe that Today in Parliament, and a morning version of it as it used to be, is of importance in getting across the value to the country of the working of this House. I am not in the least embarrassed about saying "the value to the country" because what your Lordships say and do is of great
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value to the country, regardless of where we sit in the House and of how long we sit here. But it is of more importance to us than it is to the Commons. I should like to leave what I have just said very much in the mind of the BBC because I believe I am right in saying that that particular aspect was not brought out at the meeting of the Select Committee and certainly was not apparent as being understood by it in any of the answers given by the BBC.
I briefly turn to the question of audiences. Here I referred to my pocket calculator and took the figures given in the answers to Questions 2 and 16. One finds, if the figures are accurate, that the morning audience in total is about 6.3 million; that for Radio 4 at the start of Yesterday in Parliament it is about 900,000 and at the finish of Yesterday in Parliament the audience used to be 575,000, or thereabouts; and for Today in Parliament it is between 150,000 and 200,000. From those figures it appears that even with the reduced numbers listening at the end of Yesterday in Parliament there are about three times as many as the average for the late night Today in Parliament broadcast. Furthermore, although there are probably some people who will listen to both programmes voluntarily—I stress "voluntarily" because they do not have to do so—it is surely equally probable that many, if not most, people who switch off or tune to Radio 1, Radio 2 or to local radio, as suggested by the BBC in answer to questions do so for reasons other than boredom, like going to work or wishing to get ready for Jimmy Young or whatever. So you are going to get a reduction on the programme whether you have a proper Yesterday in Parliament or not. In any case, what is wrong with a large—over half a million—audience for a specialised programme for a period, I would think, of 25 minutes, right at the end of the breakfast-time programmes? Even the rather doubtfully valuable and not altogether effective television breakfast programmes are starting to run down at that time.
To sum up, the present balance to convey a report on Parliament may technically meet Clause 13(2) of the BBC's licence of agreement, as probably a broadcast at 2 o'clock in the morning would also have done. However, it is questionable whether this meets the principle of Clause 13(2), as my noble friend Lord Ferrier said in his introductory speech, because it limits the proper presentation of the report of Parliament to a late night audience. The morning report seems to be agreed as not fulfilling Clause 13(2), and, by its nature, for reasons I have given, is involuntarily biased against this House rather than another place. I trust that the BBC will take account of the differences which I have outlined, when reviewing the present unsatisfactory arrangements, and make a change.
7.21 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, I should like to join with other noble Lords in thanking the Select Committee for their report and thanking the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, for bringing the report to the attention of the House. All noble Lords will be very much aware of the noble Lord's perseverance over many years in pursuing this matter in various different ways. I know that he would like to see an obligation

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placed on one of the television channels to include a similar report each day.
Let me say at the outset that I agree with the final conclusion in paragraph 9 of the report in which the Select Committee say:
"In their opinion, it is most desirable that, whatever the outcome of the present experiment, there should be a more satisfactory coverage of Lords' proceedings in 'Yesterday in Parliament' ".
The objective reporting of your Lordships' debates does nothing other than enhance the prestige of your Lordships' House. If the reporting is reduced to a matter of triviality, it tends to debase the work of your Lordships' House. I appreciate, as other noble Lords have appreciated, the need for the BBC to produce a programme which will hold an audience at 8.35 in the morning. I feel on occasion that unnecessary triviality is indulged in. But I must say, as in fact I think one noble Lord has already mentioned, today's programme was a model programme when it reported our proceedings of yesterday. Indeed, I think that it was almost unique in that it reported a Lord's reaction to a Government statement which had been made in the Commons. It may be, of course, that the BBC were not unaware that your Lordships would be debating this matter this evening.
One of the burdens of the charges of the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, is that he felt that 11.30 in the evening was a bad time for listening and that it was too late, and, likewise, that 8.35 was too early in the morning. As the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, has said—and I must say that I agree with him—it would be impossible to find any time which is suitable to everybody. For myself, I find these times reasonably convenient. Indeed, if the programme was brought forward very much in the evening it would be impossible for the programme to be put together and to give the full coverage that it does.
I must say that I share the concern which several noble Lords have voiced that sometimes there is no coverage at all on the programme of the proceedings in your Lordships' House. I think we are right to insist that there should be some coverage each day in Yesterday in Parliament, of course in respect of days on which the Lords have been sitting as well as the Commons. I agree that the figure of 10 per cent., which was quoted in the report and reported by the Lord Chairman when he spoke in the debate, is a figure which is not good enough, although of course I would not disagree with my noble friend Lord Ardwick, who said that we must necessarily accept that the lion's share of the coverage will go to another place. But 10 per cent. does seem to be an excessively low figure. I understand—and, indeed, I have noticed this myself—that that figure has seen some improvement since this matter has been raised in your Lordships' House.
My noble friend Lord Ardwick said that we should regard Yesterday in Parliament as a bonus. Indeed, he sympathised with the difficult task of the BBC in producing an editorialised programme. I think that we all accept that this is so, but I do not think that there is necessarily a problem of the programme being repetitive. It will very largely be a different audience who will be listening to the programme in the morning from the audience who will be listening to the
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programme in the evening. Therefore, if items are repeated I do not think that this is something that need cause concern to the BBC. If something is worth reporting both in Today in Parliament and Yesterday in Parliament, that is something which should be done and one should not be worried about the question of repetition.
My noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney raised the question of continuous sound broadcasting. He admitted that this would have a small audience and felt that this is something which might be looked at in the future. He also raised the question of whether it was possible to obtain cassettes of the proceedings of Parliament. I understand that these cassettes are available and can be obtained and listened to. Indeed, over the years several noble Lords have spent considerable time to get right the exact inflexion of what was said in a particular debate by listening to a particular cassette.
We welcome the fact, as I have already said, that the experiment is being reviewed at the end of its initial period. I think that the programme Yesterday in Parliament is one that we would want to be beamed to as wide an audience as possible; it should be a programme which is serious, which is interesting, and which is not too trivial, But I think that, above all, the general feeling of your Lordships this evening is that when the BBC come to review it they should look closely at the amount of time that they devote in that programme to the work of your Lordships' House.
7.30 p.m.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Ferrers): My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken, I should like to add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Ferrier for giving us the opportunity to consider the report from the Select Committee on Sound Broadcasting. My noble friend's interest in the broadcasting of Parliament is well known. Indeed, it is almost legendary, and it was at his suggestion, as well as a suggestion from other noble Lords, that last December this matter was specifically referred to the committee. I should like to congratulate the committee and its chairman on the brevity and clarity of the report. Its conclusion on the main question that it was asked is perfectly clear. The recent changes in the format of Yesterday in Parliament do not mean that the BBC is in breach of Clause 13(2) of its licence and agreement, because the Today in Parliament programme satisfies the obligation which has been placed upon it to broadcast a day-by-day account of proceedings in Parliament. Like other noble Lords, I think that that is worth stressing, because whatever may be the strength of feeling in the House on the new presentation, it is important not to lose sight of the clear conclusion of your Lordships' committee on that particular issue; and I am sure that the House will accept that conclusion.
Like your Lordships' House, the BBC is in the unenviable position of being in the public gaze, and whatever it does, it is criticised. On the whole I think that we can be very grateful to the BBC for fine and balanced reporting of our proceedings. I would only commend to the BBC the philosophy that I always have: you can never expect to do the right thing; all that you can hope to do is the least wrong.

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For all that, it is only right that as Deputy Leader of the House I should recognise the strength of feeling which clearly exists on this matter in all quarters of the House. This was best illustrated by the Starred Question that was asked on 29th November last by my noble friend Lord Mottistone; and the exchanges which then took place between noble Lords and my noble friend Lord Elton showed that the new experimental presentation had found few friends among your Lordships. My noble friends Lord Orr-Ewing and Lord Campbell of Alloway, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Liberal Party, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, all made their views known—and you cannot get much more formidable than that.
It was therefore quite proper for the committee to go a little wider than its strict remit, and to consider the experiment in more general terms, bearing in mind the strong feelings which your Lordships had expressed; and that the committee did. I commend the committee's conclusions to the House, and I, too, hope that during the Easter recess the BBC will reflect very carefully on the best format for the programme, in the light of both the report and what your Lordships have said today. I am sure that the BBC will, because it gave a very clear commitment to do so in answer to Question No. 29 in the Minutes of Evidence.
The two most important points are in paragraph 9 of the report. The first is that there should be a balance between the old format of reasonable thoroughness and objectivity, although with only a modest audience, and the new format of a more subjective report, prepared by correspondents, and attracting a wider audience. The second point is that, whatever may be the outcome of the review, there ought to be a more satisfactory coverage of the proceedings in your Lordships' House.
I think that most of us now welcome the broadcasting of Parliament, and in particular the inclusion of excerpts of our own debates. But I am bound to say that, as the report states, and as many noble Lords have said this afternoon, since last October there have been several occasions when the new version of Yesterday in Parliament has made no mention at all of the proceedings of the House of Lords. Frankly, I think that that must be wrong, and I do not see how the programme can claim to be a review of yesterday in Parliament if it deliberately, or even accidentally, excludes the proceedings in one House. After all, there are two Houses of Parliament, and a description, if only a factual one, of the work of this House seems to me to be absolutely essential if an assessment is to be given of yesterday in Parliament. If that means that the programme has to be extended for a few minutes, so be it. I was glad to see that in answer to Question No. 26 the BBC agreed to consider allocating a definite proportion of time to your Lordships' proceedings. If the BBC does that, it will be a major step forward.
I agree with many other noble Lords, and in no way would I suggest that in this regard we should have parity with another place. The other place is, as it were, the power house, and no one would deny that its business is of pre-eminent importance. But as Deputy Leader of this House I add my voice to those who
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would like to see the BBC ensure that proper time is given every morning to the House of Lords.
Those of us who have been in the House for some time have witnessed some fairly substantial changes in the way in which it carries out is responsibilities. There are more of us—many more. We talk longer—some much longer. We take important business. We sit increasingly long hours, though I hasten to add that in itself that is not a virtue, even if it is a disagreeable fact. We give the facility for all Bills to be discussed in toto, and on the Floor of the House—which does not happen in another place—including the Bills to which my noble friend Lord Cathcart referred, the details of which another place has not even had time to discuss.
It is generally considered that our debates are of a high standard, other than for the contributions that are made by the Deputy Leader, or the Minister of State for Agriculture. Those two gentlemen apart, the House is, if one may so put it, literally littered with experts on almost every subject. I think it fair to say that, except for a modicum of inevitable constant criticism, which I suppose can be regarded as part of the joys of life, the standing of the House in public life is as high as it has ever been, if not higher. I think that its value to public life is probably more greatly appreciated now than it ever was.
For all those reasons, now that the public have the means by which they can listen to the proceedings in Parliament, I am sure that most of us would consider that the BBC should ensure that the facility of listening to this House becomes a daily reality. I have no doubt at all that the BBC will take note of today's debate. I believe that at the end of the day the House must accept the advice which my noble friend Lord Elton gave on 29th November last, when he stressed that the BBC has editorial responsibility for all its programmes, including those covering parliamentary proceedings.
The format of Yesterday in Parliament is therefore wholly a matter within the BBC's discretion. But I am sure that on behalf of the House, I can say that it would be widely welcomed if the BBC would communicate its decision to the House after the Recess. I am sure that it will, since it so indicated in answer to the last question which was put to its representatives in giving their evidence. I hope that whatever is the conclusion, it will meet with the satisfaction of both the BBC and your Lordships.
Lord Ferrier: My Lords, the handbook tells me that it is not up to the mover of a Motion "to take note" to withdraw the Motion. However, there are two things that I want to say. One is that both the Lord Chairman of Committees and myself were right about the meeting that was referred to. I think that I am right in saying that I kept my mouth shut until after the BBC people had withdrawn. So though I was present, it was only after they had gone that the Lord Chairman of Committees was kind enough to let me take part in the discussion.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, spoke about a brief reference to the sitting of the House of Lords. My mind goes back 20 years, to when I first crossed swords with the BBC. I think that at that time the chairman was Lord Normanbrook. He said to me, "Tell me, what do you want us to report? You did

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nothing". I replied, "I beg your pardon. It is down in black and white in the Licence and Agreement. You need spend only 30 seconds, stating that 'the House of Lords also sat and considered the following matters'". That was that; and that has lasted ever since.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, talked about Yesterday in Parliament being rendered palatable. I do not know. I may have disparaged the Today programme, but I am a devotee. You should ask my wife. The only occasions when I switch it off are perhaps those moments described by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, as rendering the programme more palatable—the saxophonic fanfare and the xylophone. When they are broadcast, I am inclined to switch off. It has to be remembered that Mr. Timpson is at it from 6.30 to 9 a.m., and that the programme is heard by about 9 million people, although they are not listening all the time. I beg to move.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Mr. Stancu Papusoiu: Deportation
7.40 p.m.
Lord Bethell Lord Bethell rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will explain the circumstances under which Mr. Stancu Papusoiu was deported to Romania.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I cannot recall having risen to my feet to discuss a more disturbing matter than this in my membership of your Lordships' House. It touches, in practical terms, only one individual, Mr. Stancu Papusoiu, a citizen of Romania. Going deeper, it touches our country's deepest traditions and moral values. Our tradition of political asylum goes back many centuries. One can recall that asylum was given in this country to the French Huguenots, who were persecuted for their religion, and to the victims of the French Revolution. Asylum was given in London, rightly, to Karl Marx and to Vladimir Lenin. Later in that century, asylum was given from persecution to many of the Jewish population of Tsarist Russia and, 30 years later, to many refugees from Hitlerism in Germany.
In our generation, we have seen the welcome given to refugees from Right-wing authoritarian dictatorships such as those of Chile and South Africa. No one has questioned the duty of successive Governments of this country to maintain this tradition of granting political asylum to those who have a well-founded fear of persecution for political reasons in the countries that they have fled. Rightly, we have viewed with abhorrence the idea of returning a person to his own country where he is liable to be persecuted for political reasons.
I recall some five years ago in this House the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, raising this matter over the question of several million Soviet citizens who were forcibly returned to their own country in 1945. A notable speech on that occasion was made by my noble friend Lord Saint Oswald. It was the first time that the British Parliament had paid attention to this matter. Subsequently, it was raised in another place on some dozen occasions. I am therefore pleased that
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your Lordships have found time to assist at the first detailed discussion of this case that touches, it is true, not millions of people but one individual who has been returned by force to a country that he fled and that he had a genuine fear of returning to, where he now is and where he is now suffering a fate of which we know very little.
I believe that what happened to Mr. Papusoiu is contrary not only to British traditions but also to many of our international obligations. I shall mention at this stage Article 14 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states in paragraph 1:
"Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution".
I shall return to that document later.
Mr. Stancu Papusoiu was a man without sophistication, without great education, speaking only one little known language, a person who had previously been imprisoned for attempting to leave Romania and a person who went to great lengths to leave Romania. I wish to emphasise this point. It was put to the Home Office by the secretary general of Amnesty International, Mr. Hammarberg. I do not believe that Mr. Papusoiu would have gone to such lengths and that his motivation would have been so deep as to induce him to go to prison at least once and to risk further imprisonment simply in order to improve his material situation, to lead a materially better life and to increase his wages. Such an idea is absurd. I believe that the Home Office has been, let us say, naive in suggesting that Mr. Papusoiu's motives were mainly commercial when he came to this country.
I believe that many of us here are familiar with this case. Mr. Papusoiu surrendered to the police. He did not try to evade the authorities of this country. He was imprisoned, or detained, in Ashford Remand Centre. He said that he found life unacceptable under Romania's Communist régime and that he did not wish to work 10 hours a day in order to find a bare wage for his family. Four months elapsed in Ashford before he had a chance to discuss his problem with anyone other than officials of the Home Office and the officers of Ashford. It is true—no doubt my noble friend Lord Elton, who has no personal responsibility for this matter, will point it out—that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' representative, Mr. Landau, was informed of Mr. Papusoiu's arrival. But, so far as I can see, no action was taken and no person saw Mr. Papusoiu outside British officialdom until 2nd September when he was visited by a member of the British-Romanian Association.
My first question to Lord Elton is this. Would it not have been better—I know that it is contrary to practice at the moment—but would it not have been advisable for at least the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service to be informed of Mr. Papusoiu's arrival in Ashford? Under present regulations, because he entered this country illegally, I appreciate that he is not obliged to inform the UKIAS about such an arrival. I believe that there is a case here for reviewing the present custom and for informing the Immigrants Advisory Service of the arrival of any person who enters this country and whose case is being considered by the Home Office.
Another subject of deep concern is the circumstances of Mr. Papusoiu's detention. It is true that he was penniless and friendless. He had no means to provide himself with accommodation. Is that really sufficient reason for his detention in Ashford for more than six months? While his case was being considered—the evidence seems to suggest that he had trust in the United Kingdom and that he believed that England was a country that would show some sympathy—was it really suspected that he would abscond? Would it not have been possible for him to be found accommodation, for instance, in the place where he was eventually allowed to reside in a YMCA hostel in South-East London? Was it necessary for him to be kept under the unfamiliar and disorientating conditions for someone so unfamiliar with British reality as Ashford Remand Centre for such a long time?
I also wonder whether my noble friend can say something about the general question of refugees from Romania. I note from statistics recently put out by his department that last year 26 individuals asked for political asylum from Romania. Is that really the figure? Can he say what has happened to those 26 individuals? Has any one of them, other than Mr. Papusoiu, been forcibly removed back to Romania? Could my noble friend please tell us that? Could he indicate, please, starting from a base period of 1950 (and I have given him notice of this question) how many individuals from Soviet bloc countries—from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and the Soviet Union—have been forcibly removed back to their own country since 1950, since the policy of forcible removal initiated in 1945 finally became dead and buried? I think that public opinion would be interested to hear the answer to that fundamental question.
Many people have been revolted by the idea of a person being sent back to Ceausescu's Romania. People cannot understand that such a thing can happen in our country. We wish to know whether it has happened before. We know that seven Poles were made to return to Poland in 1981, it is true before martial law was declared. We have heard, perhaps, that some Hungarians were made to return last year. But when it comes to the two countries in the bloc with the harshest regimes, with the harshest laws against immigration, where slave labour is practised—Romania and the Soviet Union—have any people been forcibly returned to those two countries before? Or is Mr. Papusoiu the tragic first person to have been so sent back?
I would mention that of course this is a matter which also touches the United Nations' laws against slavery, because slave labour is employed both in the Soviet Union and in Romania. This is the 150th anniversary of the year when we abolished slavery in this country and the death of William Wilberforce. Did we really make the right decision in sending a person back to where he will most probably be sentenced to a term of slave labour, in this year of all years? I look forward to my noble friend's reply.
I hope that this whole unfortunate incident will lead to a total reappraisal of our policy vis-à-vis refugees from Eastern Europe. Figures recently released show that the number of refugees from the Soviet bloc who
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are accorded political asylum has declined in percentage terms over the past few years. In 1982 only 11.4 per cent. of those from Soviet bloc countries who applied for asylum were granted asylum—that was the figure quoted in the Sunday Times two days ago—whereas of those who applied for asylum across the board from other countries, mainly Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, 56 per cent. were granted asylum. This is a most alarming discrepancy. Why is it that those persons who seek asylum from the Soviet bloc seem to be treated far less generously than those who come from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan?
I believe that my noble friend should also answer certain practical questions about Mr. Papusoiu's fate. Why, for instance, after he was peremptorily arrested two days before his removal, was it not found possible for someone at least to collect his few belongings from the YMCA and to give them to him before he left this country? What measures have now been put in force to send them on to him? Will he receive his belongings now through the favours of, I suppose, the Foreign Office and our embassy in Bucharest? Could my noble friend please also indicate the details of the approach made to the Romanian foreign ministry a few days ago by our ambassador in Bucharest? It seems, on the face of it, unusual for an ambassador to make such an approach, and I think that your Lordships would be glad to have further information about this approach in the Romanian capital and about the answer that was given to our ambassador by the Romanian foreign ministry.
I believe that my honourable friend Mr. David Waddington made an honest mistake, but a tragic mistake. He wrote to my honourable friend Sir Bernard Braine, apropos the Romanian laws that prevent and deeply inhibit citizens from leaving their country contrary to United Nations declarations, that, "Such laws in my mind are deplorable but they do not constitute persecution". I believe that in making this judgment he did not take account of Article 13 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says:
"Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country".
The United Kingdom voted for that declaration, and, surely, it must recognise that Mr. Papusoiu had the right to leave his country if he wished to do so; that the Romanian Government, his own Government, in denying him that right, were persecuting him; that he was therefore a persecuted person as well as a prosecuted person; and that, therefore, he was entitled to sympathetic consideration by my noble friend's department. I wish to make no criticism and to cast no aspersion on the integrity of my honourable friend Mr. David Waddington; but I believe that he made a disastrous error and that public opinion believes that he made a disastrous error.
I have spoken of the British tradition of political asylum. There is another very important British tradition—one which came to the fore most strikingly almost exactly a year ago when the conflict in the Falklands took place—and that is the tradition of ministerial responsibility. My noble friend Lord Carrington, a man of the highest honour, took the view that he was seen by the country to have made an error—a serious error. He therefore decided, in all

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honour, that he had to give up the seals of his office. I believe that the Minister of State in the Home Office who took this decision must conclude that, while he behaved honourably, he made a serious and tragic error which will have even more tragic consequences for an individual, Mr. Stancu Papusoiu; and I can see no possible alternative open to him than for him also to resign his office.
7.59 p.m.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, it is late in the evening but the business that we are discussing tonight is so miserable and of such importance that we are extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, for raising it. Practically every newspaper of whatever political view going straight across the spectrum—The Times, the Guardian, the Mail, the Telegraph, the Mirror and the Express—has come out on the same side, and that is in criticism of the action that was taken by the Government, the Home Office or individual Ministers in this tragic case.
This is the first debate on this matter that has taken place in Parliament. The honourable Member in another place, Sir Bernard Braine, raised it most vocally there, and Questions have been asked. However, as I say, this is the first time that this has been debated. What is it that we are discussing? As the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said, we are discussing a man who arrived in this country illegally in April 1982, who went to a police station not really to give himself up but in order to ask for asylum in the hope of being treated kindly in this free country. But, my Lords, what transpired? He was kept in a police cell for a few days which, due to our prison overcrowding, must, unhappily, have seemed reminiscent accommodation of his own home detention conditions. He was then sent to the Ashford Remand Centre and released from there on 5th December, when he went to a YMCA hostel, from where he reported to the immigration authorities once a week. He was then arrested and speedily sent back very much against his wishes—to put it mildly.
Many questions arise. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, has raised some, but there are others as well. Why was not the British Romanian Association or one of the refugee bodies alerted?—especially as Mr. Papusoiu is not well educated. I understand that he speaks Romanian with a regional accent and had problems in being interpreted properly. Why did he not have access to advice and assistance, as recommended by the Council of Europe? One cannot help feeling that if he had been a writer, a professional man or a sportsman, he would very likely have received rather different treatment. I do not like to say that, but I think the facts show.
As it is the declared policy of British Governments to grant asylum to refugees if there is reason to assume that they will suffer persecution if they are sent back, does this mean that the Home Office was convinced beyond reasonable doubt that he was not in danger of persecution? If the Government were so convinced, then on what grounds were they so convinced? This is what we should like to hear from the Minister tonight. If not, why was he imprisoned at all; and why was he not given the benefit of the doubt, and at least given
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some form of asylum or treated as a refugee? He could have been a refugee without being given political asylum. He could have had asylum and we need not have become bogged down in the whole concept of politics in this case.
However, is it not true that under the harsh régime existing in Romania, to escape from that country is labelled a serious crime which merits very severe punishment? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and with Amnesty International, that in the case of a man who has been imprisoned for nine out of the past 10 years there is surely evidence that he is really doing more than trying to improve his standard of living. Is it not also true that unofficially, given time, organisations like the British Romanian Association could have arranged to send him to a country which would have taken him in? This is especially so since the international convention relating to the status of refugees, by which the United Kingdom is bound, peremptorily forbids deporting someone to a country where his life or liberty will be in danger for reasons other than the commission of "common crimes". This was pointed out most succinctly in a letter to The Times by Mr. Paul Sieghart. But none of these courses was open.
We know of other people in this situation who have gone to France or to Holland and the Government here have been quite happy—and I am sure relieved—to see them just disappear and go. But not in this case. The statement of the Minister of State, Mr. David Waddington, that he was not a Romanian seems to me to have been both post facto and also not very positive.
Lord Elton: My Lords, for the record, I should state that I think the noble Baroness meant that my honourable friend suggested that he was not a refugee; not that he suggested that he was not a Romanian.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, I just put it forward that it was reported in the newspapers that the Romanian Embassy here said that he was not a Romanian.
Nevertheless, my next point, that he had said that he was not a refugee, seems to me not to have been backed up by any specific evidence or any evidence which was good enough for the action to be taken which resulted in this man being forcibly ejected from this country.
There also arises here the question of rights of appeal, which are very unsatisfactory. An illegal immigrant has no right of appeal until after deportation. There may be a little stretch in this if someone is sent back to a country from where they can make representations to a high commissioner in that country and from where they can make representations if the country is part of the larger Commonwealth. But to imagine that someone can appeal from Romania is absolute nonsense. One hopes that one of the results of this very unhappy case will be that something will be done about the question of appeals, which I believe the Home Office have been examining.
In a fairly recent judgment in the House of Lords in the cases of Khawaja and Kera the Law Lords said:
"The right of appeal is virtually valueless."
Would it not be preferable for the Government to admit that there had been a dreadful series of

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misunderstandings, lack of communication and great insensitivity resulting in a human tragedy, rather than for the Government to stand by whatever they consider to be their rights, or the right as they see it, which does not appear to be recognised by anybody else, and to defend the indefensible?
The only encouraging aspect of this depressing drama is that so much outrage has been expressed. We live in a country which values freedom enormously and which considers it something very precious. It is imperative that our actions should always equal our beliefs.
8.8 p.m.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, for raising this important matter and for enabling us in particular to discuss the way in which the Home Office reached the decision in the case of Mr. Papusoiu, and in general the way in which it evaluates claims to refugee status by persons arriving at ports of entry or who may already be in the United Kingdom in some other capacity.
I think that we should also pay tribute to the work of the honourable Member, Sir Bernard Braine, not only in this case but in so many other cases of refugees and of human rights in general on which he works so hard. So far as I can ascertain we last debated the question of refugees in this country five years ago in May 1978. As the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, has done this evening, we were then paying tribute to the generous treatment which is accorded to refugees by this country. I think we should repeat now that, on the whole, we can be very proud of our record.
We have done our share in taking in the victims of mass persecution—people rendered homeless and destitute by the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the Asians from Uganda, the Vietnamese boat people and now those fleeing from the atrocities committed by the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. I believe that we have honoured our obligation under the United Nations convention to admit persons fleeing their own country owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
Indeed, we go further, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, has reminded us, in a time-honoured tradition we offer hospitality to those who cannot establish a claim to refugee status. We give asylum when, on the balance of probability, a person's fear is well-founded, and we give exceptional leave to remain where the fear is not individual but arises from extensive and random violations of human rights by the régime concerned, as in the case of Iran, and generally speaking Romania as well.
My own experience of taking up refugee cases with the Home Office is that Ministers look at individual cases with enormous care and sympathy. I have ascertained that since the last general election I have taken up 75 such cases with the Home Office and in 48 of those submissions the persons have been allowed to remain, only seven have been refused, and 20 are still under consideration. But there have been some general cases which have caused anxiety. I wonder, as I do in all cases of refusal of leave to enter or remain, whether
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the experience of those who do not have someone to make representations on their behalf to the Minister is as favourable as mine.
I am worried, for example, about the case of Iranians sent back to their country. A young girl of 16, for example, was very nearly sent back recently, and only after my honourable friend the Member for Inverness intervened with the Minister was it finally agreed that she should be allowed to stay. Another young man is in the Ashford Remand Centre—not a very pleasant place, as the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said—awaiting his fate at the moment, having been convicted of a series of minor offences culminating with criminal damage to the value of £50, and it is proposed that he be sent back to take his chances under the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Secondly, I am concerned at the treatment of asylum seekers from Pakistan. It seems to me that in those cases the Home Office takes far longer to decide their applications than those of any other nationality. In the case of one refugee whose interview was conducted on 8th June 1981 consideration is still being given to it, and the Minister's office told me in a letter the other day that it had not been possible to reach a decision as speedily as they would have liked. That goes for the applicant himself as well.
Thirdly, there have been problems with Eritrean refugees who come here via Sudan, and the Home Office always tries hard to return them. In this, I am sorry to say, it is abetted by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. It seems wrong to me that these young people should be barred from the chance that they have in life through establishing themselves in this country, when the Home Office decides to send them back to rot in a refugee camp, as they would in Sudan. I hope that consideration can be given to these cases.
We have made some progress in the last few years. The immigration rules have been amended so as to require that full account be taken of the provisions of the Convention and Protocol in deciding on an application for asylum at ports of entry, while for somebody who is already in the country the rules say that a person may apply for asylum in the United Kingdom on the ground that if he were required to leave he would have to go to a country to which he is unwilling to go owing to "well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion". The rules now repeat the phraseology of the Convention.
Therefore, if a person arrives at a port of entry without a visa or an entry certificate, as refugees almost invariably do, the application nevertheless falls to be considered on its own merits, and the same goes for a person who applies, having entered the country illegally, or having overstayed, as was the case, I understand, with Mr. Papusoiu. May I remind your Lordships of what was said by the then High Commissioner for Refugees in a note to his executive committee in October 1977, and repeated in the United Kingdom representative's note to Her Majesty's Government shortly after that. He had this to say:
"It should be mentioned that an applicant for refugee status is normally in a particularly vulnerable situation. He finds himself in an alien environment and may experience serious psychological difficulties in submitting his case to the authorities of a foreign

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country, often in a language not his own. Hence the need for his application to be examined within the framework of specially established procedures by qualified personnel having the necessary knowledge and understanding of the subject matter and of the applicant's particular difficulties and needs".
What was required, according to this memorandum, was that six principles should be satisfied by the procedures; that border officials should have clear instructions; that they should refer cases to higher authority; that the applicants should receive guidance on procedures; that there should be an identified authority to take the first decision; that the applicant should be granted the necessary facilities for submitting his case; and that the unsuccessful applicant should be able to appeal to judicial or administrative authority as appropriate, and should be allowed to remain pending the determination of his case unless the request was clearly frivolous.
In the debate we had five years ago the Minister who answered said that he thought our procedures were broadly in line with those recommendations. But, with respect, they are not. They were not then; they still are not today, as the case of Mr. Papusoiu illustrates. On the instructions given to immigration officers, of course, we are still in the dark because the Home Office, under both Tory and Labour Administrations, refuses to publish them. But I believe that they require the immigration officer to refer to higher authority; and it would be useful to know whether that is still the case, whether the Minister could confirm this, and whether any instructions are given to immigration officers about referring to the applicant's embassy for information about him, as I believe was done as long ago as last November in the case of Mr. Papusoiu.
Obviously there are cases where the applicants are not given any guidance, but there is no obligation on the immigration officers to inform them of the agencies which could help them, or to give them facilities for using the telephone for this purpose. Nor can it be said that they have the necessary facilities for pursuing their cases if they are held in detention, as was Mr. Papusoiu. Generally speaking, temporary admission is granted, but there have been cases where an applicant is held quite unnecessarily for months on end. I should be grateful if the Minister could tell the House—and I gave him notice of this question—how many asylum seekers have been held at ports of entry for more than a week over the last five years, and of the asylum seekers who were granted temporary admission over this period, how many absconded. I believe that the number would be very small, and that therefore normally we should give temporary admission generously to people seeking asylum.
I believe that in this particular case the immigration authorities held Mr. Papusoiu in detention because no request had been made for temporary admission on his behalf. This, in turn, may have been because the British Romanian Society were not aware of their rights to make such representations. I was told that the Minister, in answering a question at the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service annual conference over the weekend took credit for notifying the society at some point in these proceedings. He did thus concede that the Home Office had a responsibility to alert some outside agency when a refugee is held. But the proper authority in these matters is the UKIAS
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Refugee Unit, which has the competence to deal with cases expeditiously and properly. I would like to pay tribute here to Ms. Maureen Connelly and her staff for the effective work they always do on behalf of asylum seekers.
Coming to the last of the six principles, where the UKIAS considers the applicant's case is not entirely frivolous, there ought to be an independent procedure for testing the claim. If the applicant was previously in the United Kingdom in some other capacity and applied for refugee status while he was still within his permitted leave to remain, for example, as a student, then of course he would have access to an independent adjudicator under the immigration rules.
In the Home Office's discussion document, of which the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, reminded us, Review of Appeals under the Immigration Act 1971, it was proposed two years ago that illegal entrants should be given a right of appeal if they have been in the United Kingdom for more than a certain period, and I think that would be desirable. If the applicant only had a right of appeal which was exercisable from overseas, as would be the case with overstayers and illegal entrants, then of course, as the noble Baroness reminded us, it would be too late because they would have some difficulty in applying from a Romanian prison, and perhaps even more so from an Iranian cemetery.
To be fully in conformity with the convention we ought now to grant a right of appeal to all non-trivial claimants for asylum, and this right ought to be a right of appeal to the adjudicator who might seek the advice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' representative to help him in determining such claims. Then, arguments such as those deployed tonight by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, could be put to an impartial tribunal.
Because we have such a long tradition of civilised behaviour towards people fleeing persecution in their own lands, we have been prepared in the past to leave this matter entirely to Home Office Ministers and, on the whole, that system has worked because successive Ministers, including Mr. David Waddington, have continued to uphold that tradition. But it is wrong in principle for the Secretary of State, whose policy is to limit the entry of foreigners into Britain, to be in charge of these sensitive decisions. Whatever the merits of Mr. Papusoiu's case, it has focused our attention on a serious flaw in our procedures for evaluating claims for asylum, and I hope that it will now be remedied.
8.21 p.m.
Lord Saint Oswald: My Lords, this is a sorry occasion. Although the Minister may mitigate our sorrow in some small degree, that is, I calculate, the best he can hope to do. I am in a personal difficulty because I have known the Minister most closely concerned—my honourable friend Mr. David Waddington—even longer than I have known my noble friend Lord Elton, and that acquaintance has led me to like, admire and feel affection for them both. That cannot prevent me from stating as a parliamentarian that on the morning of Monday 14th March something pretty foul was done at the hands of their

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ministry, a department which acts in the name of the British people.
My noble friend Lord Bethell has been painfully but incontestably justified in setting down this Unstarred Question, backed, as he has been, by sensitive and highly informed speeches from the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. Part of the formula of the Unstarred Question in your Lordships' House, is that the Government have the last word and the questioner has no right of reply. In some cases this provides solace and a quiet night for the Government spokesman, but I doubt if it will do so in this case. Unless some unexpectedly convincing reply is provided, the Minister, his colleagues, his department and the Government whom that department advises will be pursued day beyond fearful day and night beyond sleepless night by such of us as feel ill-supplied with the facts or still hostile to the action taken in the face of those facts. We may be fairly numerous. We may be persistent. We may be intolerable. But in no way can our views and convictions easily be shrugged off.
The matter to which I shall in particular address myself is directly related to the present circumstances of the wretchedly treated Romanian whose wretched treatment has incited this debate. I shall address myself to the anguish and panic which this act has caused to other refugees from central and eastern European countries at present living in this country. The majority of them are Poles and although I am not claiming that the Poles have a unique claim on our hospitality and protection, there are many factors which make our debt to them even clearer than our duty to other oppressed fellow Europeans.
I believe there are about 900 Poles living in this country, having sought refuge from Poland during the period of martial law. They suffer through an intense fear of being forcibly deported and returned to their own country, as was the hapless Romanian victim 13 days ago. It is ironic to consider that the Poles, so prodigiously valiant in the face of the enemy, should be rendered fearful by their friends and fellow countrymen. Of course we cannot tell, without being Members of the Government, how justified or otherwise their fear may be, but let there be no doubt that that fear exists.
The present Home Secretary is as kindly a man as I have ever known in political life. A few weeks ago he sent a message, through a Member of another place, to a press conference in which I took part. The message contained an assurance that the Government had no intention for the time being of forcibly returning Poles who have been living in this country to Poland. Because they have learned to live with fear, many Poles have found the term"for the time being" suspect. Indeed, it cannot be measured in English, let alone transalated into Polish. It would be wrong in this debate to introduce at great length the forms of repression which still exist in Poland after the apparent lifting of martial law, and it may be necessary to hold a separate debate in one form or another to spell out the cynicism which underlies the public relations exercise—for it was little more than that—of removing martial law.
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I feel no compunction at having introduced into this debate the inflexion of fear which has spread through refugees of many countries, bred by the deportation of Stancu Papusoiu. In the past week, instigated particularly by men fleeing from the "Stefan Batory", the Polish ship, the Poles have been recognised as persecuted for the first time since martial law ended, and the media in general have taken the matter up in a fine and reasonable manner. They have recognised the agony and injustice which, I believe, may merit another debate on Poland. But for the moment, at this hour, we are debating the Romanian tragedy which my noble friend Lord Bethell has raised.
There is an illusion—widespread, unrealistic and unhealthy—that Romania is the most independent of the satellite nations. That is intrinsically false for the people concerned. The Government of Ceaucescu give the impression of acting independently of the Soviet rulers. That is possible only because that Government are the most Stalinist of those which now dominate those nations beyond the Iron Curtain which share with us the European heritage without sharing the freedom which should be inseparable from that heritage.
The deportation two weeks ago of that frightened man of 29 was a beastly act. So we must perceive it, unless the Minister can astonish us this evening with some contradiction of which nobody so far has seen the faintest evidence. Unless he can do so, some promise must be offered or extracted that we are aware of the ill which has been wrought and that it will never willingly or knowingly be repeated.
8.29 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: First, my Lords, I must say how much I was moved and impressed by the introduction of the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. He covered the situation in the greatest detail, and I have little to add to what he said except that I promise solid support from this Bench for the implications of all he had to say. Secondly, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, made an excellent speech, and in particular raised the point, which was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about appeals. That is an issue to which we shall have to return, although it is not a subject with which we need deal tonight.
Thirdly, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who knows a great deal more about immigration problems than I do, and more than most people do, gave us a most interesting dissertation on the dangerous implications of what is going on at the moment in spite of the fact that he gave quite generous acclaim to some of the actions of both this Government and the previous Government in relation to refugees. Lastly, the noble Lord, Lord Saint Oswald, brought up something which has always been quite near my heart, which is the troubles of the Poles. I am not going to talk about any of these things. I do not think that any of them is irrelevant, however. They have all added to the discussion that we are having.
I want to say that it is quite evident—and in my opinion it is obviously justifiable—that there is great hostility in the House to this action by the Government, both in general and in certain of its particulars. To send somebody innocent of anything which we can admit to be a crime, and in breach of

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Article 13 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to certain imprisonment behind the Iron Curtain seems to be almost impossible to defend. But some of the accompanying details appear inexcusable. What right had the police to arrest this man when he had committed no crime? It is not a crime to say that you will not obey a Home Office ruling to go back until you have actually failed to turn up at the airport at the time stated. On whose authority was this uncriminal man handcuffed in the immigration office? Handcuffing is an assault on human dignity which should be permitted only in serious criminal cases. Can the Minister tell us at what level of police authority this order was issued?
I see from the papers that the Home Office denies that he was frogmarched to the aeroplane. Was he, nevertheless, led there reluctantly and in handcuffs; and, if so, what is the difference? To whom was he presented in this sad condition—to the Romanian secret police? Did they give back the handcuffs to Securicor and put their own on, as happened to Bakunin's fetters at the frontier when he was transferred from a Hapsburg to a Tzarist jail? That was noted by Herzen, who also noted particularly the meanness of the Austrians, who would not even let their pair of fetters go. Did he fly all the way to Romania in handcuffs? I am sure that the Minister cannot answer these questions, but the very asking of them highlights the cruelty of the operation.
I, too, like other speakers, have a high appreciation of the liberal attitude of the Home Secretary and the difficulties under which he operates, and I will not specify further. I appreciate that he cannot do less than stand behind his junior Minister and his department, on whom the real blame rests. But as the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, pointed out, he has made a great hole in our reputation as a country which will accept all sorts and conditions of refugees.
Our steady retreat from being such a country where any refugee would be welcome—and this is not within the term of office of this Government only; it has been going on for some time—to one where we will not even allow an extra fortnight for the victim's friends to find a home for him elsewhere (as the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, was told by the British-Romanian Society) is lamentable. There will, of course, be a technical justification of this harsh action which the noble Lord will have to give us; but it was certainly a very marginal case. I believe that no one would have criticised the Minister or the Government if he had had the patience and the decency to give a few weeks' grace before sending a man, innocent in our law, to certain imprisonment under a regime he hates and which can be expected to punish him severely.
8.35 p.m.
Lord McNair: My Lords, I came to this debate equipped not with a speech but with a list of questions. I have been ticking them off as other noble Lords have asked them until I think only three or four remain. Before I put my questions to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, may I make one general point? Like other speakers I feel an infinity of pity for this unhappy man. If half of his life story, as I have been given it, is true,
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he clearly has an incontestible claim on our compassion. He obviously detests life in Romania à la Ceauçescu and who will blame him? There are—and the noble Lord, Lord Saint Oswald, touched on this—certain misconceptions about Romania in some people's minds. Just because the president occasionally displays a certain cautious independence in foreign policy, it does not follow, as some people outside this House seem to think, that, should he miraculously be translated into this House, he will automatically gravitate towards these Liberal Benches. I do not think that this is so. All the information that I can gather is that he runs what his Kremlin boss might approvingly describe as "a good tight ship"; in other words, as oppressive a régime as any in the Soviet sphere of influence.
I am sorry—we are all sorry—for Stance Papusoiu; I am sorry for all Romanians outside the party apparat. In Utopia, perhaps, we could offer refuge to them all. But Utopia, by definition, is not where we live. In the real world, in which, perforce, we live, refugees have to fulfil certain conditions. I have consulted people who live and work with refugees all the time and who know far more about the regulations than I ever could. If I am to be honest—and on this very important matter one must be honest, as, I hope, on others—I have to say that I am persuaded that this man did not fulfil the necessary conditions and did not have a valid, legal claim to refugee status. I do not enjoy saying this. It would give me far more emotional satisfaction to go all the way with the noble Lords, Lord Bethell and Lord Saint Oswald; but in honesty, I cannot.
It follows that it is not the fact of his repatriation which has brought me to my feet, but the manner of it and the way he was treated beforehand; and certain gaps which his case seems to me to have shown up in our procedures for dealing with these matters. These are the things which have prompted the questions which I wish to put to the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I have no doubt that he will deal with the allegations of the beating up in the Ashford Remand Centre. Of course, he will; he has to do so. But my question is specific. Is it the policy of Her Majesty's Government to resort to forcible feeding of detained asylum seekers who refuse to eat? This is an abominable prison practice which I thought we had abandoned. Am I right or wrong? My second question is this. Was this man informed at an early stage that he had a right to make contact with UNHCR?
Thirdly, is the noble Lord satisfied with the quality of the interpreters available at the Immigration Department at the Home Office? If he is not, what will be done to improve it? Lastly, and the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, more or less put this question but perhaps I may be forgiven for putting it again in case Lord Elton has not fully grasped it, can he suggest to his right honourable friend the Home Secretary that it should be standard practice that, whenever an asylum seeker is detained, the Home Office will immediately inform UNHCR, the British Refugee Council or the United Kingdom Immigration Advisory Service? Their London addresses are well known to the Home Office. If that suggestion could be implemented and built into the procedures, it would greatly reduce the inevitable stress, fear and anxiety of future newly-

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arrived asylum-seekers, of whom I fear there will be no shortage.
8.40 p.m.
Lord Hale: My Lords, of course we all wish to thank the noble Lord who opened the debate and those who have followed him. I propose for a few minutes just to state my own limited connection with the matter because I think things can get a little out of perspective. On 5th November last, the then acting chairman of the Anglo-Romanian Association—an organisation of high repute—wrote to the Prime Minister calling attention to the problems of Romanian refugees. There was then no question whatever of hiding their own views and those who are determined or desperate enough will find in the end the means to escape, even if they endanger their lives in the process or risk brutal treatment or imprisonment if caught.
The British-Romanian Association, through a personal friend of mine who is well known to many parliamentarians and a man of absolute probity, rang me up and asked whether I could take any essential measures because the British-Romanian Association were worried about two men then in Ashford Centre, about whose legal position there was great doubt.
I was consulted on the 13th November; I saw the noble Lord, Lord Elton, at a most inconvenient time for him, when he was about to answer Questions. I put the problem to him in a second or two and was immediately and most courteously given the name and address of his secretary. The noble Lord said the secretary would give me all the help he could; and, roughly speaking, that is what followed. The next thing that happened was perhaps the appearance on the scene of the man higher up. There is no question, when they talked about Sir Timothy Raison being appointed to take over all the cases so far as that particular classification of refugees was concerned, that the instructions came from the Prime Minister.
I waited to see whether Sir Timothy Raison was going to introduce a new régime of toughness. I was rather surprised that he did not. So far as I am concerned, the letters which I have here were courteous and helpful. Sir Bernard Braine, who had been instructed a day or two before me, was writing on the same lines and in fact they were replying at that early period with the same sort of letter saying, for example, "We have had a letter from Sir Bernard Braine." I saw no difference whatever so far as Sir Timothy was concerned.
One point did arise, In the course of making representations I was told that Mr. Papusoiu had commenced a hunger strike. I passed that to the authorities and about two days later I had a note—this time from Sir Timothy Raison's secretary—to say that he had indeed commenced a hunger strike but had given it up. He apparently gave it up absolutely peacefully after four days. It is a serious matter and it is strange that the Ashford Centre had not called the attention of the Home Office to this matter until I sent the message through that something was serious.
The letter to which I wish to draw attention is dated 8th December. It was from the Home Office to me and I think an almost identical one was sent to Sir Bernard Braine. It is signed by Sir Timothy Raison and finishes by saying:
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"Consideration was given to the temporary admission of Mr. Milea and Mr. Papusoiu but they were without funds and had no friends or relatives in this country who could accommodate them. Moreover, because of their deliberate evasion of the immigration control of this and other European countries we could not be satisfied that they would comply with the terms of temporary admission. However, the UKIAS has now offered to arrange to look after them, and in view of the length of time it is taking to resolve this case I have agreed that they should be granted temporary admission. I must emphasise, however, that this does not affect my decision that neither qualifies to remain in this country".
I took advice and plainly that was an intimation that there was a possibility of drastic steps being taken. I do not believe anyone can feel that that paragraph itself conveys more threat than hope; and indeed Mr. Milea, whose interests were in the hands of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, was able to make arrangements for his own protection in France where he had friends and where a political organisation arranged for his reception. So this was not a final termination but it was a warning that something might happen. I have only undertaken to deal with the aspect of two men in previous danger who now have been released.
I immediately saw Miss Connelly of the UKIAS. I saw my client and pointed out the impossibility of my going further with the case after a prolonged illness, when I had no means of transport, could not speak the language and had no special knowledge of the law. I arranged that the matter should be handed over at once to a firm of solicitors—I am not myself a solicitor—and that was done. From that moment, although I indicated that if there was any assistance I could give I would do so, the matter was put in other hands and I certainly took no further part in it; nor, indeed, could I usefully have done so. I think that the course I took was right, and other people think that way.
I must repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said. Miss Maureen Connelly said that in this highly complicated law she became functus officio, by the release from detention of the two Romanians, because her ambit of rule applied only to those in the very limited circumstance of people detained in that way, but, notwithstanding that, she went on to do all she could, and indeed displayed some of the qualities of Florence Nightingale in doing so.
I am therefore extremely sorry to appear ungenerous in my remarks about Mr. Waddington, however great a friend he may be of the two noble Lords opposite, who have bravely said that, for all practical purposes, he ought to go. I would remind the House that Mr. Waddington took over the constituency of Nelson and Colne on the death of a Romanian Jew Member, who had served them for 30 years and whose name had become famous throughout the world as a personal sanctuary of justice for all suffering trouble. Do not let me contribute to the pleasure of noble Lords opposite in that way. Sydney Silverman was a man of very great fame. His father was a Romanian refugee who came to this country in the 'nineties of the last century and his name will live in political circles for many years to come. Mr. Waddington had the chance of learning a little about the right of asylum and the duty of asylum.
I do not quarrel with the noble Lord, Lord McNair. It is possible to say, in dealing with this highly complicated matter, that it may be that there was a case for

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saying there was no automatic right against deportation. Mr. Waddington chose to add sneers—an infamous thing—to his criticism of this young man. He really does not appear to have put forward any reasons, and, in the mass of material that has appeared in the newspapers since then, with The Times and the Sunday Times in the van, the expression of indignation has been such that it must be accepted that it is, very largely, the view of the country.
I had hoped to give particulars of some of the grievances. The country will demand to know what were the negotiations with the Romanian Embassy which, if it be true, poured out information about how this Government tried to get permission to put these men through the Embassy. I am not quite clear why that could not be done under the law. Almost laughingly they said, "We were never asked for them". Did they ever ask for them? Did they say that they would take them? Were they asked to take them? Were they asked whether they had any alternative suggestion for disposing of these men, whom they did not want? How many other people were asked? I am afraid that the questions must go on.
If the noble Lord, Lord Elton, will forgive the familiarity, I personally acquit him of any blame whatsoever in the matter. I think that he was one of a series of Ministers dealing with this matter. It started with the noble Lord who was handling this matter at the time of the last Labour Government, and with a famous debate which was initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. In those days the debate was free and pleasant. There was a feeling that justice was being done in a very difficult field and there was no controversy. But the story since then has been of the introduction of complicated measures, each and every one of which was subjected to criticism. Each and every one has made the situation more complex.
Finally, I like the use of fairly commonplace words but the doctrine of refoulement is not new. It has been known for a long time. It is a very simple French word and need not even have troubled our thoughts. It merely means that when a man escapes from his suffering we do not shove him back on the fire. We do not send him back to the place from which he has won his freedom. In the main, I find myself in complete agreement with what has been said about the circumstances of this expulsion. No thought whatsoever seems to have been given to this unfortunate man.
9 p.m.
Lord Kagan: My Lords, on this occasion I rise with some passion and some anxiety. When Ribbentrop and Molotov concluded their pact and handed over Lithuania to Stalin they introduced their régime. One of their first tasks was to remove any potential opposition or leadership to the dictatorship. I well remember the senior NKVD man who was sent in to organise the deportation of 300,000 people. He was going to operate through the existing bureaucracy. When one of the officials asked him how he would go about arresting and deporting to the Gulag a man who was on their list, he said, "Give me a name and I shall find something to pin on him". So much for the security and justice which a citizen behind the Iron
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Curtain has. We have given them a name. We have also given them a body.
However, I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that this country has not just sent back Mr. Stancu Papusoiu. This country has sent back a message to thousands and thousands, perhaps millions, of people behind the Iron Curtain about the hopelessness of their case. This is perhaps the most tragic wrong. It is not only a wrong against them: it could eventually be a wrong against us. If any one of Mr. Andropov's functionaries had succeeded in contriving the situation of having a man sent here and the British authorities then sending him back, he would have deserved the Medal of Lenin for services to the KGB. I am very sorry for the officials in the Home Office. I exclude the noble Lord, Lord Elton, from any responsibility. But I am very sorry for those people who, by right, though not in honour, could share that medal for services to the KGB.
If one thinks ahead to the time of our children, there are three possibilities. The first is that, through subversion, the Soviet dictatorship will sweep over Europe without a shot being fired. The other possibility is that there will be a fight to the finish. The third possibility, for which we hope, is that the flame of freedom will ignite from within their empire and make a fight unnecessary. We have seen what has happened in Poland. That is where our hope is.
I should like to ask your Lordships to think for a moment about how this story concerning Mr. Stancu Papusoiu will be received in Poland. The BBC has been proud of the fact that it has a bigger audience in the Soviet Union than it has even in this country. The Soviet people and everybody behind the Iron Curtain have learned to listen with interest to the BBC and to read both the lines and between the lines. What is the message that they will read in this story? It is the biggest Easter gift we could have sent to the propaganda machine behind the Iron Curtain.
I have heard it suggested that economic improvement was the motive behind Mr. Stancu Papusoiu's escape. I was in a dentist's surgery in Stalin's days when a person refused to accept an anaesthetic because he was afraid of what he might say under that anaesthetic. We have seen many people give up high positions in the Soviet Union—well-paid jobs—in order to breathe fresh air. It is absolutely deplorable that this suggestion could have been made. It is also absolutely naïve.
I would suggest, first, that it was a mistake, if not a crime to ourselves and to any hopes for freedom here. Secondly, I would suggest to the noble Lord the Minister that in the weeks to come we should monitor accurately the manner in which this Stancu Papusoiu event has been beamed to the Soviet people and to the people behind the Iron Curtain, and what prominence have they given to it. Poland should be included in that. Then, perhaps, we shall realise what terrible damage has been done.
9.6 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, in official form I am required to answer on behalf of Her Majesty's Government the Question which my noble friend has placed upon the Order Paper. But none of your Lordships is in any

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doubt that what I am answering is not a Question but a charge—and a serious one at that. There were a number of matters subsidiary to it, but the principal charge is that the Government have knowingly and callously returned to his country and to certain retribution a political dissident who had fled to England in search of freedom. I shall pursue that principal charge and will endeavour to take up the subsidiary ones to the extent that the time which your Lordships will allow me permits.
I can best start my reply by giving a chronological account of the relevant events from the moment when Mr. Papusoiu first presented himself to our authorities until the moment when he finally left this country.
Lord Bethell: My Lords, would my noble friend allow me to ask him one question?
Lord Elton: Yes, my Lords, this one, but no other.
Lord Bethell: Before he starts, could my noble friend accept that no-one in this debate has suggested that Mr. Papusoiu was a political dissident?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I may have chosen the term wrongly, but I understood that it was political motivation which the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, attributed to this man which distinguished him from an economic migrant.
Lord Bethell: My noble friend used the word "dissident".
Lord Elton: I have used the term "dissident", my Lords, and if it is in any way inaccurate I withdraw it, because we all know what I mean; I mean a man who has to leave his country for political reasons and cannot go back for political reasons. If the noble Lord will accept that, I hope he will accept that he has had his ration of interruptions, because I have such a long tally of questions to answer.
As I say, I think I can best start my reply by giving a chronological account of the relevant events from the moment when Mr. Papusoiu first presented himself to our authorities until the moment when he left this country. Mr. Papusoiu is believed to have arrived in the United Kingdom as an illegal entrant concealed in a lorry on or about 16th April 1982. On 19th April he reported to Limehouse police station, where he was given an initial examination and where he asked for asylum. He was without any travel or identification documents, and without any visible means of supporting himself.
He received his first substantive interview at Limehouse police station on 21st April 1982. This was carried out through an interpreter who, I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, was both born and educated in Romania. At that interview he claimed that he had twice previously attempted to leave Romania illegally. He said that on the first occasion he had been given, in either 1969 or 1970, a sentence of five months' imprisonment but that the sentence had been suspended. He further said that on his second conviction he had been sentenced to 12 months' immediate imprisonment, but that after serving only
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two months he had been released under a general amnesty. In the account of himself he presented at this interview, with fully effective interpretation, he claimed, therefore, a total of two months' imprisonment. Following this interview Mr. Papusoiu was transferred to Ashford Remand Centre.
At this point the case of Mr. Papusoiu becomes involved with that of another Romanian, a Mr. Milea, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hale. Mr. Milea arrived illegally in the United Kingdom at the same time as Mr. Papusoiu, and he was also detained at Ashford Remand Centre. Because there were many similarities in the circumstances surrounding the arrival of the two in the United Kingdom the two cases were considered together. A number of representations were made on Mr. Milea's behalf which delayed further action on both cases. Both cases were submitted to the Minister of State in July. Further representations were then received, and it was decided that both detainees should be interviewed again to give them every opportunity to explain their circumstances in detail.
Mr. Papusoiu was given a second interview on 6th September. The same interpreter, born and educated in Mr. Papusoiu's own country, was again present. But the story he then heard was strikingly different. On this occasion Mr. Papusoiu recalled not two previous attempts to leave Romania, but five. He also claimed that he had served not just two months in prison but nine years and two months. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Hale, will not think that I am attempting to sneer—I think was the term he used—at Mr. Papusoiu, but it is necessary to put before your Lordships all the considerations that were before my honourable friend and the department throughout this case.
Lord Hale: My Lords, can the noble Lord say why these facts, which are of great materiality, were never passed back to us? This is September the noble Lord is talking about. The letters to which I referred passed in November, and no such suggestion was then made.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I must try not to give way too often. I am giving an account of the events that took place in chronological order, as I undertook at the beginning. As to which pieces of it should be revealed to whom and at what stage when the matter is under consideration, that is perhaps for later reflection.
Mr. Papusoiu could give no explanation of why he had not previously mentioned either the three extra attempts or the three sentences, each of three years' duration, and separately served. The rather startling discrepancy between the accounts which he gave of his past on these two occasions did not exactly help his credibility. I shall be concerned with his credibility again later. But it has little bearing on another matter elicited in these interviews.
In these interviews officials, of course, had a prime interest in the reasons Mr. Papusoiu gave for wishing to settle outside Romania. The only substantive reasons which they could elicit were that he disliked the long working hours and that he also disliked the frequent shortages of food. Whatever the credibility of the applicant, he has to have a reason for applying for asylum which would warrant our granting it to him.

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Perhaps I ought to enlarge on that point. It is surely accepted that one cannot describe everyone who is discontented with economic conditions in his home country automatically as a refugee. It may not always feel like it at the end of a long recession, but our standard of living in this country is the envy of a large part of the population of the world. It is against that background that it is agreed—and is the clear policy of the Government—that we must have a policy of firm and fair immigration control. This can admit to this country, and offer to protect in it, only people satisfying criteria specifically laid down in immigration rules. To put it at its bluntest, if we waived our immigration rules for everyone who felt that he would be better off here than he would at home we would very rapidly find ourselves hosts to enormous numbers of people from all over the globe. That would be folly, and nobody is suggesting it. What would be equally impracticable—and highly invidious as well—would be to indulge in that sort of hospitality but to reserve it to people who lived in only one part of the world. Whether that part was in Asia or Africa or Europe, it would be invidious to accord to its citizens the right to become refugees for purely economic reasons and to deny that right to everyone else.
Indeed, the United Nations Convention on Refugees, implemented for this country in our Immigration Rules, makes it quite clear, as my noble friend in asking his Question has endorsed, that the criterion for the status of refugees is a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or membership of a particular social group or holding particular political opinions. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees himself distinguishes emphatically between refugees and economic migrants. To abandon that distinction would undermine the convention and reduce our ability to accept genuine refugees.
Baroness Birk: My Lords—
Lord Elton: My Lords, I have given way three times already.
Baroness Birk: My Lords, is the Minister really saying that someone who has spent nine out of 10 years in prison in Romania has motives that are entirely for economic improvement? It just does not make sense to us or to anyone else.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the noble Baroness will appreciate the relevance of what I am to say a little later on that point. What I am doing now is establishing what I would have thought are the eminently reasonable grounds on which our immigrations are by general accord based. A person who comes here for asylum as a refugee must have reasons—other than economic reasons—that are valid.
Lord Bethell: My Lords— —
Lord Elton: I have given way enough, my Lords.
Lord Bethell: My Lords— —
Several noble Lords: Order!
Lord Elton: My Lords, it has been suggested that there were political motives in this case. I have looked at the papers we have received. I have noted that, at his interviews, Mr. Papusoiu was given ample opportunity to alter or elaborate his claim to asylum; and I have to say that at no time was anything written or said that gave him any sufficient claim to refugee status.
It was as an illegal entrant that Mr. Papusoiu had been detained in Ashford Remand Centre. In August 1982 the London representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who had received details of the case, undertook inquiries in France—through which Mr. Papusoiu had claimed to have travelled—to see if they would have him back. In early November the Home Office was informed that they would not. The French authorities did, however, indicate that they were prepared to consider accepting Mr. Milea to continue an application for asylum he had already made in that country.
It was also in November, on the 20th to be precise, that Mr. Papusoiu began to refuse to take food. His hunger strike, to protest at his detention and the refusal of asylum, lasted until four and a half days later. He had began to eat again by tea time on the 25th. I shall refer to this episode again in a moment, because very serious allegations have been made about it. But those allegations were not, it appears, made—nor anything like them—on the very next day, 26th November, when Mr. Papusoiu was visited by two members of the British-Romanian Society, which we had informed about his case.
It was in fact the Refugee Counsellor of the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service who, on 1st December, asked whether Mr. Papusoiu might be granted temporary admission on her undertaking to accept responsibility for him. My right honourable friend always regrets the need for lengthy periods of detention and usually some solution is available fairly soon, but this was the first offer by anyone to take responsibility for him and the first opportunity for his release. We were glad to accept it and accordingly he was released on 4th December 1982.
Both the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the British-Romanian Association continued efforts which they had started before his release to find an alternative destination for Mr. Papusoiu. In the meantime Mr. Milea had embarked voluntarily for France before any application had been made for him to do so. Mr. Papusoiu's case was considered by Home Office Ministers on a number of occasions but they remained convinced that he did not qualify as a refugee and that he should be removed. On 10th February 1983 my honourable friend, the Minister of State, decided that arrangements for that removal should be resumed. They had been suspended following representations made to him by, among others, the honourable Member for Essex South-East and the noble Lord, Lord Hale.
Mr. Papusoiu was directed to report to an immigration officer on 21st February 1983 and

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advised to bring with him an interpreter and, if he wished, his representative. Mr. Papusoiu reported alone and was, therefore, required to return to the immigration officer on 14th March when arrangements were made for the presence of the same interpreter who had dealt with this case from the start. He was then served with a formal notice that arrangements had been made for his removal to Bucharest by air on 19th March. Mr. Papusoiu said that he would not leave voluntarily and threatened suicide. That placed upon us a very delicate responsibility. It was, therefore, decided to take him into custody both to guard against the possibility of his disappearance and for the sake of his own safety. It was also decided to accelerate his departure in order to reduce the period of his detention.
The question of handcuffing has been raised at this point. I have to say that the responsibility for ensuring that those in their custody do not escape is that of the police and they have to see that they do not endanger the safety of others or themselves. As for the particular circumstances in Mr. Papusoiu's case, I should make it clear that an immigration officer has no power to order that a person should be handcuffed. The decision to handcuff Mr. Papusoiu was made by the police officers to whose custody the immigration officer handed him. Whether police should use handcuffs in a particular case is a matter of operational judgment which has to be taken by the responsible officers on the spot. I recognise of course that many people find handcuffing distasteful. That is why Home Office guidance to the police advises that handcuffing should not be resorted to unless there are very good reasons. I recognise the concern not only of the noble Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge but of the House about the use of handcuffs on this occasion and I shall ensure that it is drawn to the Commissioner's attention.
On 16th March, Mr. Papusoiu was taken from Ashford to Harmondsworth detention accommodation. From here he was escorted by two members of Securicor staff to Heathrow. On the journey to Heathrow physical restraint of handcuffs were neither necessary nor used. He was accompanied to the aircraft steps which he mounted alone and without protest. That is the end of the chronology, but other serious matters have been raised.
The most serious allegations were those relating to Mr. Papusoiu's hunger strike. They were made by Mr. Papusoiu himself, during his release on bail when he was medically examined on 18th December. They were that he had been forcibly fed and that he had been physically assaulted by 10 prison officers. He claimed that during this assault he was repeatedly struck in the lower back and had his arms and legs trodden on. You will recall, my Lords, that Mr. Papusoiu was visited by two members of the British-Romanian Society on 26th November. The allegation recorded in the medical report, a copy of which I have seen, was that this serious assault by 10 people took place on 25th November, the day before this visit. I find it as surprising that Mr. Papusoiu appears to have made no mention of these events on that occasion as that his visitors seem to have noticed
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nothing in his appearance or demeanour to suggest he had been so recently and so grossly mistreated.
In that context I cannot help recalling the unexplained contrast between the first and the second account which Mr. Papusoiu gave of his earlier history. That recollection is not offset by the medical report of 17th December. The doctor who wrote the report said that no recent injuries were present on his right arm. He also conducted a careful investigation of Mr. Papusoiu's lower back. He found no signs of tenderness there and examination under ultra violet light revealed no signs of resolving bruises in any part of it. He also examined both his legs and found no sign of recent injuries there either. He did, however, find evidence of two healing bruises on the left arm but was unable to give any opinion as to how these occurred.
I mentioned a moment ago, my Lords, my doubts as to the credibility of Mr. Papusoiu. The independent medical report obtained by Mr. Papusoiu's own legal adviser was the vehicle by which the charges of assault were made known to the Home Office and arose from claims made by Mr. Papusoiu to the medical examiner. It is therefore fair to note that this report records that in giving an account of his past experience Mr. Papusoiu arrives at a third recollection of his imprisonment in Romania which he now puts neither at two months, as in his first statement, nor at nine years, on which the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, fixed as the true total and which he gave in his second statement, but at "some 5 to 6 years". Unlike my noble friend—and I think that I am now quoting what he said not in the debate, but in The Times newspaper this morning—I do not find this degree of inconsistency in a matter of such obvious central importance to the man as in any way lending credibility to the picture of himself that he was seeking to draw.
I can confirm to the noble Lord, Lord McNair, that it is not the practice in Her Majesty's Prison Service to force-feed prisoners who have rationally decided to stop eating. Mr. Papusoiu stopped eating for a trivial length of time, and careful inquiry confirms that he was not force-fed. I would not have expected it; and there would have been considerable repercussions had he been force-fed. The same results attended our inquiry about the allegations of assault. They are, I believe, as ill-founded as the allegations in the press, followed wholesale by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, that Mr. Papusoiu was frogmarched, protesting, and in handcuffs, on to the plane that took him back to his native country. He was escorted to the aircraft by agents of Securicor, who do not have handcuffs, and who have no right to use force to restrain those whom they are escorting. Mr. Papusoiu mounted the steps of the aircraft unaccompanied and without protest. He was received by the cabin staff of the Romanian aircraft, who were told, in accordance with normal practice, that he had been refused entry to the United Kingdom.
I now come to the other specific questions that have been raised. In today's Times my noble friend suggested—and he repeated it this evening—that the anti-emigration laws in Romania are in breach of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and Article 12 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. He argues from that that if Mr. Papusoiu is subsequently punished for having

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broken those laws, he will be subject to political persecution. But if we follow that line of reasoning, it is to arrive at a reductio ad absurdum, for it would inevitably give a claim to asylum in this country to the entire population of every country—and there are many—in which such laws existed. That is why the United Nations High Commission for Refugees' Handbook on Procedures for Refugee Recognition lays down that considerations of punishment for illegal immigration, or overstaying abroad, are relevant only if a person qualifies on other grounds as a refugee. Those other grounds are the grounds for which, all along, we have been looking, in vain.
The noble Lord asked how many citizens of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania have been deported from this country since 1950. The systematic compilation of deportation statistics began only in 1973 with the coming into force of the Immigration Act 1971. Before that the figures were kept on a different basis, and therefore the information requested by the noble Lord is not available. However, I can say that in the 10 years to February of this year, 25 Poles and two Hungarians were deported, but their names are not separately listed, and therefore without examining several thousand case files, it is not possible to say whether any of these nationals were deported to a country other than their own. No Czechs, Russians, or Romanians were deported during that period. In addition to those deported, seven Polish citizens who had been recommended by the courts for deportation left the United Kingdom under supervision, but in those cases no deportation order was signed by the Secretary of State. A table showing the figures in question for each year since 1973 will be placed in the Library of the House.
There are one or two matters which I think your Lordships would not wish me to overlook, and I shall refer to them very briefly. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who I must say is a prolific, determined, and charitable inquirer into these cases, asked a number of statistical questions, of which he was kind enough to give me notice. I fear that the figures that he wants are not available. He also asked about the presentation of asylum cases to an independent authority; he suggested the Appeals Adjudicator and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' representative. The existing procedures are that where a right of appeal exists, a nominated adjudicator deals with cases involving asylum, and the UNHCR representative has the right of appearance as an independent party. Where no appeal rights exist or where appeal rights have been exhausted there is the possibility of review by Home Office Ministers that may be considered of greater scope than a formal appeal. There is also the possibility of recourse to judicial review.
The present procedures conform with the recommendations of the UNHCR executive committee. I am not sure that the noble Lord accepts that, but that is our view. Successive Home Secretaries have considered proposals similar to those put forward by the noble Lord but have concluded that additional procedures would not be justified. I take it from the temper of what your Lordships have said that you would wish me to draw the attention of my right
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honourable friend to your Lordships' concern that this should be looked at with the greatest of care.
There were interesting diplomatic exchanges. I can tell your Lordships that the British ambassador in Bucharest, acting on instructions, called on the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs after Mr. Papusoiu's removal from the United Kingdom to inform then that Mr. Papusoiu was removed from the United Kingdom for a breach of the immigration laws and not for any political reason. The Romanian authorities took note of those representations. My noble friend Lord Saint Oswald was concerned about the Poles. I can tell him that since martial law was imposed in Poland no Pole has been returned to Poland against his or her will. My right honourable friend announced today—I do not know whether my noble friend was aware of this—that this exceptional treatment should be extended to the 31 Poles who stayed behind when the cruise liner "Stefan Batory" sailed from this country recently. That will give some reassurance to the Poles, who, the noble Lord, Lord Kagan, feels, will be deeply anxious following the developments.
I apologise to your Lordships for the length of time that I am taking. There are so many questions that I shall need, I think, another four minutes, if your Lordships will bear with me. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, raised the question of access to Mr. Papusoiu. There is no formal arrangement whereby those seeking asylum are notified to a particular agency such as the UKIAS or the UNHCR. In those cases where a favourable decision is reached and the applicant needs assistance with accommodation or welfare, he is normally put in touch with the British Refugee Council. In cases where there is doubt on the facts adduced or the interpretation of refugee provisions, the refugee unit will consult the local representative of the United Nations High Commissioner. There are, in fact, very few cases that have not already been adopted by an agency before reference is made to the Home Office refugee unit, and even fewer, where detention is unusually involved, wherein the person does not, of his own motion or on advice from fellow detainees, find himself in touch with those who might espouse his cause. I shall, however, recommend to my right honourable friend the suggestion that the procedure for notification should be formalised.
The noble Lord also asked about the 26 applications made by Romanians in 1982. Of the 26 applications 12 were granted, one was withdrawn, 10 were refused and three were outstanding at the end of the year.
No party, and few, if any, individuals, believe that this country could survive with totally unrestricted immigration. Some rules are essential. The rules that we have are rules made by Parliament. They were not casually arrived at; they were made after prolonged, detailed and arduous debate. Any set of such rules will always have hard cases, and even sad cases, at the margin. Such cases take up a great deal of the time of the officials and Ministers of the Home Office. This case has also taken up a great deal of time of officials and Ministers.
This country offers refuge to genuine political refugees. It offers refuge to those fleeing the Eastern bloc just as much as to those from elsewhere. My noble

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friend suggests that there has been a change of policy in this area. My right honourable friend has been in office throughout the whole period over which this change is alleged to have taken place. He entirely refutes any suggestion that there has been any change in the policy.
The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, referred to changes in the statistics. There have been changes in statistics, but they are dependent on changes both in the flow of applicants and in the sort of people of which that flow is constituted. To refer in print, as my noble friend has done, to a new Yalta Agreement is a damaging and unwarrantable assertion that my right honourable friend deeply resents.
I accept that this is a case which has aroused strong feelings and raised difficult and sensitive issues. The United Kingdom has an honourable and generous record as far as refugees—that is, "refugees'", as defined in the international convention—are concerned. But Parliament has also approved a strict immigration control which inevitably, and in my view rightly, has to disappoint many people who merely wish to better themselves by settling in the United Kingdom.
The Home Office and my honourable friend have the exceedingly difficult task of doing the job that Parliament and noble Lords themselves want them to do in distinguishing cases. We apply the test of refugee status on the individual merits of the case. I think that it is fair and right to other potential immigrants that we should so do. The experience of other countries shows that blurring the test can and does lead to considerable abuse. To regard every person who comes here from an East European country as a political refugee would be a serious matter which would affect all our immigration policy. The fact remains that this case was given the fullest consideration on a number of occasions; but my right honourable friend is satisfied that the man had not adduced a sustainable claim to refugee status or asylum and that the circumstances of the case did not justify the exceptional grant of leave to remain in the United Kingdom.
That, my Lords, is my answer to the charge made by my noble friend and it renders his suggestion that my honourable friend should resign, strangely and, I think, ungraciously inappropriate.
Lord Bethell: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, can he please finally tell us what has happened to Mr. Papusoiu's belongings?
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am sorry that I overlooked the last paragraph of the noble Lord's article in today's issue of The Times, which was sufficient notice—
Lord Bethell: My Lords, I mentioned it in my speech.
Lord Elton: Yes, my Lords. I was going to say "which was sufficient notice of the question which he raised in his speech". My honourable friend will inquire into the matter of Mr. Papusoiu's belongings and their return.
Lord Bethell: My Lords, thank you.

Tor Bay Harbour (Torquay Marina &c.) Bill
Bill brought from the Commons; read a first time, and referred to the Examiners.
British Railways (Liverpool Street Station) Bill
Bill returned from the Commons with the amendments agreed to.

Staffordshire Bill [H.L.]
Bill reported from the Select Committee with an amendment and recommitted to the Select Committee on Unopposed Provisions.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes before ten o'clock.